Tycoon David Garrick narrowly escapes an assassination attempt. He is fairly unruffled by this but his playboy son, Sunny, is very concerned. He recruits unconventional private detectives Arden and Suzy Buckley to investigate. David Garrick is pretty unpopular so there is no shortage of suspects. It becomes evident that the prospective killer has hired professionals to do the job who will ruthlessly eliminate those who frustrate their plans. Who wants David Garrick dead - and why?
Review
The most atypical Thriller episode and among the general fan community the least popular. It's fair to say that this comedy-drama instalment centred on a husband-and-wife, wisecracking, cavalier private detective duo is disliked by most who've seen it but I am in the small minority who has always really enjoyed it. Therefore my very positive review comes with a prominent health warning!
Thriller used humour sparingly. This was a deliberate choice as Brian Clemens had shown via The Avengers a talent for combining drama and humour. Thriller did have occasional funny lines or characters like Hans in One Deadly Owner whose dry humour made them amusing. There were also characters of great wit like Matthew Earp (An Echo of Theresa and The Next Scream You Hear) and Hillary Vance (Night Is the Time for Killing). There is also black humour in episodes such as Murder Motel. However nowhere else is there a comedic style as experienced in this outing. The story premise is certainly not comedic - a wealthy businessman is the target of death threats, but from whom? It could easily have been played as an entirely serious whodunit story and it would have been fascinating to see the results. However Brian Clemens (with assistance from Terry Nation with the concept) wrote it as a comedy-drama.
It's fair to say it is the comedy that draws the hackles of most viewers who feel it just doesn't come off. For me on the other hand it works beautifully and is extremely funny. Maybe the problem for some is context. It carries the Thriller brand and viewers expect it to be in similarly intense vein. Maybe viewers seeing the movie version "Color Him Dead" with no knowledge of a link to Thriller might appreciate it more on its own merits. Of course some of them may not rate it even without the Thriller association. The Thriller formula is an elastic one and could stretch to a more humorous style - as an anthology series it did not have to worry about regular characters acting against type and could explore different styles more readily. The key issue is whether that attempt is made successfully.
On a comedic level it works great for me. Arden and Suzy Buckley are a fine pairing, with so many funny lines and a refreshing sense of abandon. They are also though good at their job, thwarting the attempts on Garrick and ultimately catching the killer. Stephen Rea and Gayle Hunnicutt play these entertaining characters with very good chemistry. Sunny is played with great devilish charm by Christopher Cazenove while his father David is appropriately irascible. The criminal broker Shelby Grafton is splendidly handled by Derek Francis - there is general agreement even among sceptics that he is one of the highlights of the episode. The hapless informer Charley White is played almost wholly for laughs and is nicely conveyed by Arthur White. It does say something for the light-hearted style that even Charley's murder is the subject of wisecracking rather than horror. David Garrick's unfaithful girlfriend Mrs. Gale (perhaps a nod to The Avengers and played by Honor Blackman-lookalike Frances Bennett) is another delight, as is the northern hitman who polishes off Charley. It's notable that many of the actors used in this episode were very comfortable with comic and lighter roles which suits the style here but if a more serious version had been attempted quite a few roles may have been recast.
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| Unconventional private detectives Arden & Suzy Buckley (Stephen Rea and Gayle Hunnicutt) |
For all this the drama is not overlooked. The unhappy relationship between Garrick and Sunny is all too real. Garrick has given his son little but money but Sunny has squandered so many advantages - a scenario that exists in many families. The character of Mrs. Garrick though offers the greatest drama. She has mentally collapsed and switches between childish innocence and fearsome bouts of anger - and then back again. Maybe if more use of her role had been made some of the critics might have been appeased. Either way it is a tremendous performance by Jean Kent.
The drama does not go on too long here with the production generally trying to keep matters light. This means for example that even the killing of certain characters or threats to their lives are met quite flippantly in a way that some viewers may feel is hard to take but works for some. As a lighter episode it's not too surprising that it ends on a light-hearted upbeat scene which is a little sickly but okay in this context whereas some attempts to lighten the tone at end of more serious stories (e.g. Kiss Me and Die) jarred rather more.
There was no return to a production quite like this again. Maybe Brian Clemens and the producers felt it hadn't really worked, or perhaps they were happy with it but believed one such story was enough. Murder Motel at the end of Series 5 saw the return of Derek Francis and had some comic elements but in a more subdued - and rather ineffective - style. Whatever one's opinions on this episode it does at least provide plenty of talking points and hopefully there are others out there who enjoy it.
ITC movie title-watch
The end montage wrongly shows Suzy riding the scooter on which Arden hitches a lift. The new title "Color Him Dead" (using the American spelling of "colour") perhaps unsurprisingly was assumed to be a spelling mistake by many British newspapers and was "corrected" to "Colour Him Dead". The new title is also one I have to take a few moments to connect it to this episode as it is a very generic title that could refer to various episodes while the American slang use of "color" might be lost on many viewers outside the USA. Better movie titles would have some link to the storyline, e.g. "Death in Small Doses" (the new title for Ring Once for Death) does suggest the villain's mode of killing.
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