Colonel March of Scotland Yard
GenreCrime drama, Mystery
Based onThe Department of Queer Complaints
by Carter Dickson
Directed byCy Endfield
Terence Fisher
Arthur Crabtree
Bernard Knowles
and others
StarringBoris Karloff
Ewan Roberts
ComposersEdwin Astley (9 episodes)
Philip Green (1 episode)
John Lanchbery
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes26
Production
ProducerHannah Weinstein
CinematographyLionel Banes
Running time30 minutes
Production companyFountain Films in association with Panda Productions
Original release
NetworkITV

Colonel March of Scotland Yard is a British television series consisting of a single season of 26 episodes first broadcast in the United States from December 1954 to Spring of 1955. The series premiered on British television on 24 September 1955 on the newly opened ITV London station for the weekends Associated Television. It is based on author John Dickson Carr's (aka Carter Dickson) fictional detective Colonel March from his book The Department of Queer Complaints (1940).[1] Carr was a mystery author who specialised in locked-room whodunnits and other 'impossible' crimes: murder mysteries that seemed to defy possibility.[2] The stories of the television series followed in the same vein with March solving cases that baffle Scotland Yard and the British police. The department itself is sometimes referred to as "D3". Boris Karloff starred as Colonel March.

Production

The series was made at Southall Studios in Middlesex, England (and, later, Nettlefold Studios in Walton-on-Thames, England) and was produced by Fountain Films for ITV. In July 1952, Karloff and his wife Evelyn sailed to England, where Karloff filmed three different pilot episodes to be shown to TV executives. While awaiting a decision on more episodes, the three pilots were combined into a feature film called Colonel March Investigates (1953). In 1953, Karloff returned to England to film 23 more episodes, making a total of 26.

The Colonel March TV series premiered first in the United States from Dec. 1954 to Spring of 1955, with a total of 26 episodes. It first premiered in England in 1955 on Associated Television (ITV London, weekends), broadcast on 26 consecutive Saturday evenings from 24 September 1955 until 17 March 1956.[3]

The show starred Boris Karloff as the urbane, tweed-wearing, eye-patched sleuth. No reason was ever given for the wearing of the patch. Other regular actors included Ewan Roberts as Inspector Ames of Scotland Yard and Eric Pohlmann as Inspector Goron of the Paris Sûreté. (In the episode "The Second Mona Lisa", Pohlmann played a Middle Eastern character called The Emir.) Roberts' Scottish accent grows stronger as the series progresses, from posh English in the some episodes to strong Scottish burr for others.

The opening title sequence showed Colonel March taking off his coat in his office and writing the title of each episode in a book. This then dissolves to an image of an object from within the following story, what Alfred Hitchcock would call a MacGuffin, a fairly unimportant plot device that starts the story rolling and/or keeps it moving along. Often it's a murder weapon or an item of clothing. Sometimes its relevance is a mystery until it is revealed later in the episode. Other episodes, such as in "The Headless Hat", show the item that the episode is named after.

The episode "The Talking Head" uses the complete version of the original theme tune during the end credits. It was usually truncated and faded up whilst some way through. The show's slightly mysterious and threatening theme tune was changed for the episodes "Error at Daybreak" and "The Silver Curtain" to a piece of jaunty, faster-paced music that had originally been used in previous episodes to accompany shots of a busy city.

Other guest actors in the series include Alan Wheatley, Christopher Lee, Patrick Barr, Hugh Griffith, Marne Maitland (twice), Joan Sims, Anthony Newley, Patricia Owens, George Coulouris, Anton Diffring, Martin Benson, Zena Marshall, Mary Parker Henryetta Edwards, and Robert Brown. The episode "Death and the Other Monkey" features a small acting part by future film director John Schlesinger as a Dutch ship's captain. The episode "Error at Daybreak" features a performance from the then 10-year-old actor Richard O'Sullivan who later went on to star in Man About the House, Robin's Nest and several other ITV series.

Critical reception

In Britain, the series was initially evaluated in the larger context of the programming of the newly launched ITV. Critic Bernard Levin opined: "If there were only something of signifiant badness, then one could at least take a hatchet to it. But who could take a hatchet to Wilson, Keppel, and Betty, stars of Saturday night's variety programme, or to the adventures of 'Colonel March of Scotland Yard', the intellectual content of which is the nearest thing to a hole I have ever seen?"[4]

List of episodes

EpisodeTitleFirst London ITV Transmission
(ABC, London)		Transmission in the Midlands (ATV, Midlands)Archive
1The Sorcerer1 October 195529 February 195616 mm
2The Abominable Snowman8 October 19557 March 195635 mm
3Present Tense15 October 195515 March 195616 mm
4At Night All Cats Are Gray22 October 195521 March 195616 mm
5The Case of the Kidnapped Poodle5 November 195528 March 195616 mm
6The Invisible Knife19 October 195528 March 195616 mm
7The Strange Event at Roman Fall4 February 19562 April 195616 mm
8The Headless Hat12 November 195511 April 195616 mm
9The Second Mona Lisa26 November 195525 April 195635 mm
10Death in Inner Space10 December 19559 May 195635 mm
11The Talking Head17 December 195516 May 195616 mm
12The Devil Sells His Soul7 January 19566 June 195616 mm
13Murder is Permanent14 January 195613 June 195635 mm
14The Silent Vow21 January 195620 June 195616 mm
15Death and the Other Monkey28 January 195627 June 195635 mm
16The Stolen Crime11 February 19564 July 195635 mm
17The Silver Curtain18 February 195610 July 195635 mm
18Error at Daybreak25 February 195617 July 195635 mm
19Hot Money3 March 195624 July 195616 mm
20The Missing Link19 November 195531 July 195635 mm
21The Case of the Misguided Missal3 December 19557 August 195616 mm
22The Deadly Gift24 December 195514 August 195616 mm
23The Case of the Lively Ghost31 December 195521 August 195616 mm
24Death in the Dressing Room10 March 195628 August 195635 mm[5]
25The New Invisible Man17 March 19564 September 195635 mm
26Passage at Arms24 September 1955[6]22 February 195635 mm

Home media

Eight episodes (only) of the series have been released to home video by Alpha Video.

The region 2 DVD release of the 1970 Karloff film Cauldron of Blood (aka Blind Man's Bluff) includes the episode "The Silver Curtain" as an extra.

All 26 episodes are available to stream on Amazon Prime,[7] Apple TV[8] and Hoopla (digital media service).[9] The show has been regularly shown on the UK TV channel Talking Pictures TV.

References

  1. ↑ Chibnall, Stephen; McFarlane, Brian (2009). The British 'B' Film. Macmillan Publishers. p. 223. ISBN 9781844575749.
  2. ↑ McKinty, Adrian (29 January 2014). "The top 10 locked-room mysteries". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  3. ↑ Mank, Gregory William (2009). Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff : the expanded story of a haunting collaboration. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., Publishers. p. 349. ISBN 978-0786434800.
  4. ↑ Bernard Levin, "Food for Thought on Lack of 'Meat': ITV Serves 25 Hours of Trifling Fare", The Manchester Guardian (26 September 1955): 14.
  5. ↑ Held by the National Film & Television Archive.
  6. ↑ "Radio and TV Programmes: Saturday and Sunday", The Manchester Guardian (24 September 1955): 11.
  7. ↑ "Watch Colonel March of Scotland Yard | Prime Video". Amazon.
  8. ↑ "Colonel March of Scotland Yard". Apple TV. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
  9. ↑ "Colonel March of Scotland Yard". Hoopla.
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