Randall and Hopkirk (Declassified)

Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames.

In common with many ITC productions, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) utilised the famous 'ITC White Jag' footage, a sequence originally shot by director John Llewellyn Moxey in November 1965 for Something for a Rainy Day, an episode of The Baron, and then augmented by subsequent directors including John Hough, John Gilling and Leslie Norman to make it fit into their own productions. Over the years, the footage was used in most ITC series at one point or another and became something of a running joke with viewers - if a character got into a white Jaguar, then they were in for a very rough ride with a smashing finish.

The sequence in the It's Supposed To Be Thicker Than Water episode of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) is made up of footage newly shot for the episode along with film from stock, which had originally been filmed for two episodes of The Baron (Something for a Rainy Day and Time to Kill) and a Department S (Who Plays the Dummy?). With access to high definition Blu-ray versions of all of these episodes, Randall and Hopkirk (Declassified) has identified four different Jaguar cars that were utilised in the building of this sequence over a three-year period:

	Jaguar Mk I Registration WRP 344 (Registration on the front of the car was NMK 76, which was most likely the actual registration.) Filmed: November 1965	Also appeared in: *The Baron* - 'Something for a Rainy Day' *The Saint -* 'The Queen's Ransom' The Champions - 'The Final Countdown' *Department S* - 'Who Plays the Dummy?' *The Adventurer -* 'Icons are Forever' *Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense -* 'Black Carrion'
	1957 Jaguar Mk I Registration M 431 428 (Car undoubtedly carrying fake Continental registration plates.) Filmed: 29th June 1966	Also appeared in: *The Baron* - 'Time to Kill' *Department S* - 'Who Plays the Dummy?'
	Jaguar Mk II Registration M 2543 Filmed: Autumn 1968	Also appeared in: *Department S* - 'Who Plays the Dummy?'
	Jaguar Mk II Registration 469 EXO Filmed: September-October 1968

Images © ITV Studios, 1965-1968

The climax of the sequence originally filmed for two separate episodes of The Baron was shot in two different locations. The first shots, where we see one of the white Jaguars (a Mk I, with fake Continental registration plates - M 431 428) out of control on the road and hitting the verges at the side of the road was filmed on 29th June 1966 on Ivinghoe Beacon in the Chilterns for the episode Time to Kill (directed by John Hough, who had been Second Unit Director on Something for a Rainy Day). Next, we cut to a shot of a different Jaguar (another Mk I, registration WRP 344) which careers down a steep slope towards the precipice - this was shot in November 1965 near Zig Zag Road on Box Hill, Surrey for Something for a Rainy Day. The sequence then cuts to a shot from a camera at the base of the cliff (in Betchworth Quarry, beneath Box Hill) and we see it launched from the summit into the void. The camera follows the doomed vehicle on its descent and it impacts heavily on outcrops of rock before disappearing from view. There were two cameras covering the action at the summit and at least three cameras were rolling below in Betchworth Quarry, as different angles of the launch and descent are seen in the various series that the sequence appears in, often subtly re-edited. Of particular note is that the Jaguar appears to have lost its fake front registration plate by the time it comes to rest and through the wonders of high definition transfers, we can see that it reads NMK 76. It would seem that WRP 344 was a fake plate used throughout the Something for a Rainy Day episode of The Baron, possibly to permit two filming units to use what appeared to be the same car simultaneously. A production photograph exists which demonstrates this oddity further, with the '76' of NMK 76 visible at the front of the car and the WRP 344 number at the rear.

Image © ITV Studios, 1965

An automatic camera was placed in the Jaguar car that was to be launched into the quarry. The camera was later recovered from the smashed vehicle in the quarry and the film retrieved for processing. There was of course the danger that the impact might have damaged the camera and rendered the film unusable - in this instance, the director's calculated risk paid off and the film footage obtained is remarkable. It gives the viewer a stomach-churning point-of-view from the driver's position behind the steering wheel as the vehicle flies at dizzying speed over the edge and dives headlong into the quarry below. The full filmed descent from this angle is included in a Kinolibrary Archive clip on YouTube, featuring breathtaking footage never seen on television. We recommend vertigo sufferers shut their eyes at parts of this sequence!

Image © ITV Studios, 1965

Kinolibrary Archive Film Clips

Filmed: November 1965
(John Llewellyn Moxey)

Filmed: 29th June 1966
(John Hough)

Filmed: Autumn 1968
(John Gilling)

Image © ITV Studios, 1965

The November 1965 footage also reveals that prior to its release, the vehicle was held on the hillside on a wooden ramp, which appears to have been specially constructed for this filming session. This solution would seem to have been arrived at so that it was possible to hold the Jaguar securely on the steep incline without the vehicle having its handbrake engaged. This meant that it could be freed by means of removing the holding device and eliminated the necessity for a crew member to risk their life by reaching in to release the handbrake. The sequence became infamous over the following decade due to its repeated use in various ITC series, but at least it didn't gain its notoriety due to a tragic accident during filming! As soon as the camera in the car was rolling - and those at ground level in the quarry, informed by radio or visual cue, were running their cameras also - the car was released from the ramp and its fateful excursion began. (Note the lime kiln chimney, top left in this image, as we'll be returning to that later...)

The smashed car was recovered and returned to the studio at Elstree, where it was called into service one last time, looking exceptionally sorry for itself in a studio mock-up of the quarry. This sequence was shot to conclude the Something for a Rainy Day episode of The Baron, and featured Steve Forrest (as John Mannering) and Sue Lloyd (as Cordelia Winfield), neither of whom filmed scenes at the quarry location (stand-ins were used on location, as also regularly occurred with Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)).

The same filming location was utilised in January 1966 to shoot a further such sequence, this time involving a red Renault Dauphine, for And Suddenly You're Dead, another episode of The Baron. This time it was decided not to place a camera inside the car - as cameras were expensive to replace - and so this footage would often be intercut with the white Jaguar in-car shots in subsequent ITC productions, with the red car suddenly inheriting a white bonnet!

The ITC White Jaguar sequence features in:
The Baron - 'Something for a Rainy Day' and 'Time to Kill'
The Saint - 'The Queen's Ransom'
The Champions - 'The Final Countdown'
Department S - ''Who Plays the Dummy?'
Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) - 'It's Supposed To Be Thicker Than Water'
Jason King - 'Toki'
The Adventurer - 'Icons are Forever'
Follyfoot - 'Uncle Joe'
The Tamarind Seed (1974 feature film)
Rutland Weekend Television - in the titles of 'Rutland 5-O'
Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense - 'Black Carrion'
Saturday Night Live - 'The Hitchhiker' and 'Toonces the Driving Cat'
Spitting Image - Series 1 Episode 12 (17.6.1984), Series 3 Episode 8 (13.4.1986) + 1993 episode

The red Renault Dauphine sequence features in:
The Baron - 'And Suddenly You're Dead'
The Saint - 'The Counterfeit Countess'
The Champions - 'A Case of Lemmings'
Department S - 'The Man Who Got a New Face'
The Persuaders! - 'The Ozerov Inheritance'
The Benny Hill Show - Series 16 Episode 1 ('The B-Team'), Series 17 Episode 2
and Series 19 Episode 1
Alas Smith and Jones - Series 2 Episode 6
Father Ted - 'Hell'

If you've spotted additional occurrences of either of these sequences,
please drop us a line.

The whole 'white Jag' enterprise was an unusually expensive one by ITC standards, which is one of the reasons that footage of the stunt turns up time and again in their productions and was also sold as library footage for use in other productions. It was even licensed for re-use in the popular American television comedy series, Saturday Night Live from 1989-1993 in which it featured in The Hitchhiker and Toonces, the Driving Cat segments, and footage from a 1992 special can be seen on YouTube. Closer to home, it appeared on Spitting Image and, most appropriately, in the ITC spoof The Preventers in 1996. Meanwhile, the red Renault Dauphine footage later showed up in Hell, an episode of the sublime Channel 4 situation comedy Father Ted.

Perhaps the biggest surprise about ITC's famous 'White Jag' sequence is that it was in many ways a repeat of an earlier stunt staged for a 1957 feature film entitled The Counterfeit Plan. Made by Merton Park Studios in South London and directed by Montgomery Tully, the film - a crime thriller starring Zachary Scott, Peggie Castle and Mervyn Johns about a gang forging £5 notes that were practically undistinguishable from the real thing - built to a climax which was shot at a very familiar location, Box Hill and Betchworth Quarry. Eschewing the class of a white Jaguar Mk I, the villains this time chose to make their escape in a US Army Jeep, registration number 62 BPE. This of course ended up careering down the recognisable slope above the quarry to its end and the villains' doom. The lime kiln chimney at the quarry, which could be seen in the 'dashcam' White Jaguar footage, is clearly visible at the film's high speed climax. The chimney still survives today as part of a 27-hectare (67-acre) nature reserve managed by the Surrey Wildlife Trust in an area designated the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Image © StudioCanal, 1957

Remarkably, the camera position at ground level in the quarry will be very familiar to those well-acquainted with the later ITC footage:

Image © StudioCanal, 1957 / Inset Image © ITV Studios, 1965

It is not clear how the sequence filmed for The Baron came to be shot at the same location as that for The Counterfeit Plan, but the similarities in the footage are instantly recognisable. The Counterfeit Plan was reputedly a popular film in the United Kingdom, so it's quite possible that it was seen by those in authority on The Baron and marked down as a heart-stopping stunt that could be recreated for their series. Equally, it is possible that the stunt and where it could be achieved was passed by word of mouth from members of the respective film crews. Regardless, we've now got one to add to the list: 'the olive Jeep', which gets an honorary mention despite the fact it doesn't hail from an ITC production.

Another one to add to the unofficial list is the feature film Crossplot (1969), a production of Tribune Productions, the company which would go on to produce The Persuaders! for ITC. Both productions starred Roger Moore. The sequence for Crossplot was specially shot at Betchworth Quarry and featured a red Mini, registration FMK 80B. The shoot utilised, in common with The Counterfeit Plan, the grassed area at the cliff-top as well as having cameras located at ground level in the quarry below.

Later, in 1977, another such stunt was arranged at Betchworth Quarry for the LWT situation comedy The Fosters (Series 2, Episode 7: 'The Bargain', 28/5/1977), with a maroon Ford Zephyr careering off the cliff and into the quarry below.

Another ITC White Jag, albeit not one which was as ill-fated as many of them, appears in The Saint: The Queen's Ransom. Michael Cassidy takes up the story...

"The Mk I Jaguar used in The Queen's Ransom was a 1959 3.4 SE, and I had owned it! I bought the Jaguar, with the registration number UKV 668, from a pilot in East Grinstead in July 1964. I paid £300 for the car, and can still 'feel' the pleasure I had when driving it. The inside was red leather, and it had a switch on the dashboard for Overdrive. Fuel consumption was about 18mpg in London, and 23mpg on a good run. The fastest I ever went in the car was 120 mph, with the rev counter showing 3,500 rpm – just ticking over really!"

"In 1966, I used to live in Roehampton, almost opposite the old KLG spark plug factory. There was a very wide pavement outside my house, so I put the car on the pavement with 'For Sale' notices in it. Lots of people stopped! One said he was an agent for a company that hired cars to film companies, and gave me his card. He gave me all the information he could about the Jaguar needed for The Saint. My understanding was that the cliff scene at Betchworth Quarry had already been filmed, and that they wanted a decent white Jaguar for the scene leading up to the crash. The car that went over the cliff was grey and 'whitewashed', he said. I just wanted to sell the car, so when I sold it, to a young man in Castlenau, by Hammersmith Bridge, I passed the agent's card on to him."

"I sold the Mk I Jaguar in March 1966 for £100, and in September 1966 it appeared right at the end of The Queen's Ransom. The car sported French number plates (169 LN 75), but tellingly the driver's mirror was on the dashboard. I always watched The Saint, so when the new series started in September 1966 with The Queen's Ransom, I tuned in with a special interest. You can imagine my excitement at seeing 'my' Jaguar, and my frustration at not being able to prove it. I had to wait to the era of video recorders before I could finally confirm that it was the Jaguar Mk I that I'd owned. The near side scratches confirmed it!"

UKV 668 is not registered today with DVLA. Of course, it is possible that the car is still running with a different number. Unless, of course, it was driven off a cliff...

Feature and Research by Alan Hayes • A Saintly Coda by Michael Cassidy
Thanks to Michael Cassidy, Oliver Dale, Sam Denham, Geoff Dodd,
Darren Giddings, Graham Macdonald, Marcus Payne, Andrew S Redding,
Anthony Stevenson, Jaz Wiseman and Jack Yan

Back to Features

Back to Top