#was something of a stock player in british cinemas‚ usually in minor bit parts as caddish gentlemen or authority figures and military men | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mariocki · 1 year ago

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A young Christopher Lee guest stars as dastardly Larry Spence - a rising star in the world of journalism, turned blackmailer and then murderer - in The Vise: The Final Column (1.16, ABC, 1955); the episode wasn't seen in the UK until 1963, as part of ITV drama anthology Tension

#fave spotting #christopher lee #the vise #tension #1955 #the final column #for more information on the complicated origins of The Vise (a US production entirely made in the UK) see my prev fave spotting post for #Jacqueline Hill's appearance on the series #Lee was hardly a newcomer when he made this ep; he'd been acting professionally since being demobbed a couple of years after ww2 and #was something of a stock player in british cinemas‚ usually in minor bit parts as caddish gentlemen or authority figures and military men #one of his first really significant roles would be later in '55 as a submarine commander in The Cockleshell Heroes #he was also making semi regular appearances on tv in small guest spots‚ albeit sometimes uncredited (as in ITV's The Adventures of the #Scarlet Pimpernel also around this time). a jobbing actor‚ basically‚ and not yet the cinematic icon he would begin (that journey starting #at the end of the decade and the beginning of his association with Hammer studios and horror immortality). he's very good here tho #host and narrator Ron Randell even describes him near the start of the ep as (something like) 'young‚ handsome‚ but sinister' which #may as well have been printed on business cards for the kind of work Lee would find himself doing for the next decade or so #yes he's a real rotter‚ a strangler of ladies and a blackmailer of tycoons‚ and in true Vise fashion he gets his just desserts and the mora #status quo is maintained (this is a very moral series and takes pains to inform us via Randell exactly what kind of punishment the villains #received after the events depicted)#Lee made two more Vise episodes but as Network (rip beloved) seemingly took a random approach to which episodes to include in their #first volume of the series (and obviously as it turned out only volume) i have no idea if either of those are on the set #one can hope! and i do bc it's lovely seeing him so young but with such a meaty role

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