juliet hamer

Adam Adamant Lives! – The Terribly Happy Embalmers

archivetvmusings BBC Drama - 1960's , , ,

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The opening of this episode is AAL! at its most Avengerish (not really surprising of course since Brian Clemens wrote the script). Sir John Marston (John Scott) bids his friends and colleagues a cheerful goodbye before stepping into a comfortable coffin – immediately afterwards he is pronounced dead by Wilson (Jeremy Young).

The coffin is delivered to an undertakers run by Mr Percy (Arthur Brough – glass of water for Mr Grainger please) and is opened to reveal a happy Marston, declaring that it’s good to be alive again. Unfortunately Mr Percy then shoots him dead ….

Now that’s how you write a teaser!

Clemens’ script sparkles throughout. Mind you, it doesn’t hurt that it boasts fine performances from some experienced players. Such as Deryck Guyler as Grantham, the snuff-taking Man from the Ministry who calls in Adamant to solve the mystery of why a number of financiers (including Marston) died immediately before they were due to face charges of tax evasion.

The common link is a psychiatrist called Velmer (John Le Mesurier). His profession serves as a cue for Adam and Georgina to discuss the merits of psychiatry in another comic scene. Georgina’s abuse of Adam’s priceless tea service also raises a smile.

The presence of John Le Mesurier is another major plus point in the episode’s favour. Although for a bright man, Velmer seems to be a little dense (even after learning about Adam’s past life, he doesn’t twig that his subject is actually the celebrated Adam Adamant). This is even odder when it’s later revealed that Velmer knows all about Adam.

Hamilton Dyce, as Mr Percy’s second in command, and Ilona Rogers (Susan) help to fill out the cast.  I have to admit that she looks rather fine in her nurses uniform (which seems to have been designed to maximise her cleavage).

Velmer has sent Adam to a very strange nursing home where Susan is on hand to attend to his every need – although the buttoned up Adam draws the line at being undressed by her! The early dialogue exchanges between Harper and Rogers are a gift for both for them.

It’s nice to see Harper given some good material to get his teeth into – unlike some of the previous episodes Adam isn’t just portrayed as an uptight innocent, he seems to be a more rounded character today (quick witted and easy able to feign madness – Velmer is convinced that Adam’s Edwardian remembrances are simply delusions and Adam is happy to string him along).

Georgina has been sidelined for most of this episode – stuck in the flat with Simms who’s been entertaining her by reciting several of his hair-raising limericks – but eventually she pushes herself into the story by skulking around the offices of the health club. She encounters a strange-looking man rising from a coffin in a shock moment that seems designed to lead into an ad break (before you remember this was a BBC show).

Georgina and Susan later have a brief catfight which is the cue for Georgina to steal her clothes and for Susan to emerge a moment later in a state of undress. The conclusion – with the undertakers perishing in a barrage of friendly fire and Adam and Wilson fencing to the death – is a bit of a cracker.

The Very Happy Embalmers has a rather thin story but since it’s assembled and performed so well I’m not complaining. After a few false starts, this episode pointed a possible way ahead for the series, albeit as an Avengers clone.  If AAL! was going to have a long term future then it would need to find its own voice, but for now this episode is simply content to be nothing less than first rate entertainment.

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Adam Adamant Lives! – The Sweet Smell of Disaster

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Benjamin Kinthly (Charles Tingwell) has a dream. He plans to take over the country with the help of some addictively perfumed plastic flowers (which are given away free with his washing powder Cloud 7). Only one man – and his sometimes annoying female sidekick – stands in his way ….

This is rather more like it. Robert Banks Stewart’s script is ploughing a very definite Avengers furrow, but that’s a plus for me rather than a minus. And given that plastic flowers are key to the story (although these are beguiling rather than killers) I wonder if Robert Holmes happened to tune in? Holmes’ later Doctor Who story Terror of the Autons also had a key role for plastic flowers.

For once, Adam has to face a male protagonist, although a wily female – Shani Matherson (Adrienne Corri) – operates as his sidekick. Once again, it’s best not to study the plot in too much detail – Kinthly is convinced that his scented flowers have now contaminated the whole country. So when he suddenly withholds supply, the nation (by now nothing more than hopeless addicts) will agree to his every demand. Everybody in the country? That’s a bit difficult to swallow.

The Sweet Smell of Disaster works on one level as a sly satire of the advertising world. Kinthly’s buzztalk and the advert we see at the end (which Adam and Georgina watch on a television screen) are good examples of this. Mind you, given how addictive the flowers are, I’m not quite sure why Kinthly’s wasting his time with such an extensive advertising campaign.

The series’ low budget means that we’re denied the vision of the whole country in turmoil, so we have to rely on the sight of Georgina and Simms – both, unlike Adam, affected – to sell the notion that the flowers really are addictive. Of course once Georgina is cured then she can assist Adam (something which the long-suffering Adamant is less than delighted about). However, since this allows her to dress up as a flower girl in a rather brief costume I was quite content. Adam himself seems to be a quick learner about the ways of the 1960’s as her attire seems to pass him by. A couple of episodes ago he probably would have been horrified.

When the episode moves onto film it’s possible to guess that a set-piece scene is coming. Given all the detergent lying around, Adam’s decision to mix it with water and then stage a foamy fight with Kinthly was an inspired one. The foamy catfight between Georgina and Shani was quite eye-opening too ….

An assured effort, the series now seems to be finding its feet.

Adam Adamant Lives! – More Deadly Than The Sword

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Adam (with Georgina tagging along of course) heads off to Tokyo to deal with an evil blackmailer who spells trouble for the British government ….

Oh dear. After two pretty entertaining episodes we hit something of a speed bump with the third. Terence Frisby’s other writing credits include a couple of (wiped) episodes of Public Eye but he’s easily best known for penning the play There’s A Girl In My Soup. His sole contribution to AAL! is a curious thing, although the major problem is one key casting decision.

Things start sprightly enough. Sir Ernest Hampton (Maurice Hedley) is an important government official who’s been unwise to find himself ensnared in a honey trap. But rather than do the decent thing and resign, he wants Adam to find the blackmailer and kill him! Another series might have made more of the notion of a Government sponsored killer, but the breezy comic-strip nature of AAL! means that it’s not something that’s dwelt on for more than a moment.

It seems odd for the blackmailer to be out in Tokyo and unlike Blackpool last time, we’re denied any scene-setting. I wouldn’t have expected the production team to jump on a plane to the East, but at least a few stock shots might have sold the illusion. As it is, we simply travel from one studio set to the next (most of the action taking place in a Geisha house) which just as easily could have been anywhere in the world.

Some comedy is extracted from Adam’s horror at being asked to consort with Geisha girls, although he quickly adjusts. He’s a fast learner that boy. There’s no room for Simms in this adventure (although possibly it was written before Death Has A Thousand Faces). There should really be no place for Georgina either, but she rather improbably manages to shoe-horn herself in. The moment when – dressed as a Geisha – she confronts Adam is rather nicely played though.

Given the dearth of ethnic actors in the UK during the sixties and seventies it was common to see British actors playing a variety of nationalities (blacking up as and when required). On the plus side, More Deadly Than The Sword does boast many ethnic supporting actors, it’s just a great pity that the major role of Madame Nagata was played by the very English Mary Webster.

Her cod Japanese accent becomes wearisome very quickly and it’s this one performance which really torpedoes the episode, although Barry Linehan as McLennon doesn’t help either. He was a familiar television face, but I have to confess that his performances often seemed a little off-key. Margaret Nolan (as Sadie) provides one bright spot. Probably best known for playing Dink in Goldfinger, she doesn’t have to do anything except play a dumb blonde, but she livens up proceedings for a few minutes.

Easily the least engaging of the surviving episodes, let’s hope that the next is somewhat better.

Adam Adamant Lives! – Death Has A Thousand Faces

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Adam and Georgina head off to Blackpool in order to foil a deadly scheme to blow up the Golden Mile ….

After the lovely picture quality of the first episode, the murky gloom of Death Has A Thousand Faces comes as an unpleasant surprise. Unlike A Vintage Year For Scoundrels, it doesn’t appear that the film inserts for this one still exist – a shame, as it would have been nice to see the Blackpool travelogue scenes in better clarity.

They’re still good fun though – the incongruous sight of Adam and Georgina strolling down the Golden Mile doesn’t advance the plot at all, but it generates a spot of local colour and gives us a breather before the main plot kicks in. As for the story, it’s probably best not to ask why a vital clue was contained within the middle of a stick of Blackpool rock which was then taken to London. This seems a very strange way of going about things.

Once Adam has dispatched the two Hells Angels (one played by the distinctly unthreatening Geoffrey Hinsliff) who were pursuing Georgina (who just happened to have come into contact with the mysterious rock) the pair head off to Blackpool. It might be a big place, but it isn’t long before they stumble across the villains – Madame Delvario (Stephanie Bidmead) and her henchmen Jeffreys (Michael Robbins) and Danny (Patrick O’Connell).

As with the previous story, we see how a female villain causes problems for Adam (his Edwardian mindset makes it difficult for him to process the concept that a lady could be evil). This would be a theme that would run and run throughout the series. Bidmead (who had played the villainous Maaga in Lambert’s last Doctor Who story as producer – Galaxy Four) offers a subtler performance than the scenery-chewing of Freda Jackson and she’s given strong support from both Robbins and O’Connell.

Apart from those already mentioned, another familiar face – Sheila Fearn – appears as Susie, an apparently sympathetic character, but another who turns out to be on the side of the ungodly. Poor Adam, if this goes on he’s going to develop a complex about the female of the species.

The most important new arrival is, of course, Jack May as William E. Simms. Simms is currently plying his trade as a Punch and Judy performer but by the end of the episode he will have wangled himself a new position as Adam’s valet. May’s performance across the series is idiosyncratic – sometimes cultured, sometimes crude – but never, ever dull.

There’s another round of fisticuffs (plus Georgina nearly gets stretched on the rack) before order is restored. Madame Delvario’s plan – blowing up the Golden Mile with black lightbulbs filled with explosives in order that a rival area can take over – is one that you’re not likely to see anywhere else.

A step up from the debut episode, although the series is still on somewhat shaky ground. Alas, the next episode doesn’t mark an upswing in quality ….

Adam Adamant Lives! – A Vintage Year For Scoundrels

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Having worked on Doctor Who, Verity Lambert was already well versed in the difficulties of bringing a television concept to the screen. Like Who, Adam Adamant Lives! had a “pilot” episode which was reshot, but in the case of AAL!, the changes were rather more dramatic ….

Donald Cotton’s original script was deemed to be unworkable, so the majority of his work was binned (only the opening ten minutes – set in 1902 – were retained). Also deemed surplus to requirements was the original Georgina (Ann Holloway). With only a handful of production photographs existing to document her brief association with the show, it’s impossible to know for sure why she didn’t work out. Lambert’s assertion that Holloway simply wasn’t sixties enough has always seemed a little odd to me.

But with a new script and a fresh Georgina (Juliet Harmer) the series could try again. Cotton’s surviving material (all shot on film) is rather entertaining – it firmly establishes the 1902 Adam, a man who tends to throw his assailants off high balconies at Windsor Castle and then ask questions later. But his sense of honour is obvious – an adversary can be respected if they play the game, but a traitor is beyond the pale.

So when his one true love – Louise (Veronica Strong) – turns out to be in cahoots with the evil Face (Peter Ducrow) poor Adam is rather distraught. Never raising his voice above a whisper (as well as being shot out of focus) the Face makes the most of his limited screentime. His masterplan (encasing Adam in a solid block of ice, thereby ensuring he exists forever in a living hell) does beg a few questions mind you, such as how the ice never melts.

This question was still bothering me some sixty years later when a group of workmen uncovered Adam – still perfectly frozen. Oh well, you have to accept that plot vagaries are part and parcel of AAL! Now we’re in 1966, there’s one more notable film sequence – this occurs  as Adam wanders dazedly around the West End of London, encountering Georgina for the first time – before the series largely switches over to videotape.

Contemporary reviews noted that Adam’s disorientated stumbling went on a bit (which it does) but it’s still an interesting spot of guerrilla filming. Lambert and Gerald Harper had different recollections about it – Lambert was sure that they had permission before shooting, whilst Harper remembered dashing from one location to the next in order to keep out of the clutches of the police. Certainly most of the passers-by seem to be simply ordinary members of the public, unaware they’ve briefly become television stars, rather than extras.

The comic possibilities between the upright Adam and the groovy Georgina are successfully mined. Adam’s shock at being left with an unattended Georgina in her flat (not to mention his amazement that she wasn’t – as he first thought – a boy) are entertaining. Although the entertainment ratchets down a notch when the main plot comes into play.

If the story of the villainous Margo Kane (Freda Kane) and her dopey henchman was really a step up from the storyline in the pilot then goodness knows how feeble that must have been. The shock of switching from film to videotape is most obvious during the fight sequence in Georgina’s flat. Even though the VT sequences were transferred later to film to allow for tighter editing, there’s only so much than could be done – so they end up looking a little rough round the edges.

But overall it’s not a bad debut and given the production difficulties it’s possibly surprising that it turned out as well as it did.