VENDETTA FOR A DEAD MAN • REVIEW

VENDETTA FOR A DEAD MAN • DECLASSIFIED

• Pre-Titles Teaser... Late at night, convict Eric Jansen escapes from the psychiatric wing of H.M. Prison Castleton by scaling a high wall and leaping down from it onto the street outside. However, his break for freedom has not gone unnoticed - the prison's alarm bell rings out as he hits the ground. He runs down a nearby street and seeks cover, backing into a shadowy doorway as a police patrol vehicle approaches and pulls up. The officers swing a searchlight, hoping to spot Jansen, who cowers in the doorway. Before they can pick him out, they receive a radio message directing them to another street where there has been a possible sighting of their quarry. The patrol car departs and inside the officers share their concerns that Jansen has slipped the net and that this is an 'anniversary trip' as the prisoner is a few days off having spent a year inside. In these cases, the purpose is often revenge, to settle a score with a cheating wife or the person who was responsible for their imprisonment. Meanwhile, Jeff is outside a girlfriend's apartment building, smooching with her in the Vauxhall. She has to go, so she walks to the apartments entrance and Jeff drives off. He turns on the car radio, hearing the end of a news bulletin about an escaped convict, and switches to a music channel. He arrives back at his apartment to find a thick-set, pockmarked man inside, dressed in Jeff's suit and eating a meal he has prepared. Brandishing a knife, he reveals himself to be Eric Jansen, a man Jeff has good reason to remember as his partner Marty Hopkirk put him inside a year ago on an eight-year stretch. He wants Hopkirk. But Hopkirk is dead, Jeff explains, showing Jansen a legal document by way of proof. "On the death of Marty Hopkirk, his rights and benefits under our partnership agreement were assigned to his widow, Mrs Jean Hopkirk", states Jeff. "Like it says, she inherits everything," warns Jansen coldly...

• Production Brief... Vendetta for a Dead Man was the seventeenth episode to go before the cameras. It was the eighth episode to have been written by Donald James and the fourth to be directed by Cyril Frankel, who had returned to Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) having directed four episodes of sister series Department S. In one of these episodes, Frankel had worked with actor Ron Pember and it is likely that this was a factor in his casting as the Fairground Concessionaire in Vendetta for a Dead Man.

• Sue Long returned as set dresser for this episode, taking the reins from her own replacement, Roger Christian, who had filled the role on The Man from Nowhere. Long would set dress two further episodes - Just for the Record and Could You Recognise the Man Again? - with Christian called back for the last six episodes of the series.

• Actor William Dysart, the Police Inspector in this episode, is dubbed throughout by another actor, for reasons unknown.

• Exact filming dates for this episode are unknown, but it is believed to have been filmed between February and March 1969. A fully edited version of this episode was completed by mid-July 1969.

• On Location... Vendetta for a Dead Man is an episode with relatively modest locations, its most striking one - the cliffs - being realised, not entirely convincingly, in studio with stock footage of the Corbière lighthouse in Jersey intercut. Otherwise, the episode visits London's Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia districts (for a genuine night shoot rather than the usual day-for-night filming), wooded roads in the Burnham Beeches area, the familiar stamping grounds of St. John's Wood and Maida Vale, and the backlot and other areas of the ABPC Elstree Studios. More details in Locations: Vendetta for a Dead Man.

• Haunting Melodies... Edwin Astley was not asked to compose any new music cues for Vendetta for a Dead Man, with its score coming entirely from stock. A short section of the library track All Night Rave by Gordon Franks, used previously in A Sentimental Journey, could be heard emanating from Jeff's car radio in the pre-titles teaser and Robert Farnon's Harp Interludes illustrated Marty's arrival at Jeff's apartment.  Another Farnon piece (as heard before in The Champions) added to the suspense of Jansen's confrontation with Jean at Cavallo-Smith's cold store. The final non-Astley composition in the episode is Walter Stott's Comedy Links which lightens the tone for a while after Jeff mistakenly assaults Jeannie's milkman.

• Seeing Things... Vendetta for a Dead Man its first UK broadcast on Friday 13th February 1970 at 7.30pm when it aired in colour in the ATV ITV region.

• Trivia... The opening sequence, filmed outside at ABPC Elstree Studios, proved to be unsatisfactory for director Cyril Frankel, as he related to Andrew Pixley, Michael Richardson and Vanessa Bergman for Time Screen magazine in 1989: "I tried to do the episode in basically two colours: green and brown, with various shades of beige... Anyway, I had to shoot this chap coming over a wall... and I had an agreement with wardrobe that they would supply green overalls... The stunt guy came over the wall and the overalls were blue! Afterwards I complained to wardrobe and she replied it didn't matter, so my concept for the episode had been somewhat lost."

• Speaking to Andrew Pixley for an earlier issue of Time Screen (September 1985), George Sewell further explained that the opening sequence was also painful - in a much more physical sense - for the stunt performer: "My stuntman - my stunt double - hurt his ankle. It was supposed to be me jumping off a very high wall. He did it for me and really hurt his ankle. Didn't break it, but he sprained it badly."

• Jeff's photographic processing area in his kitchen, seen in The Man from Nowhere, is back to being a storage area for kitchenware in this episode.

• We learn that before she met Marty, Jean took a temporary job one Christmas at a store in Oxford Street in London's West End. It was there that she first met Emil Cavallo-Smith and while she didn't date him as such, she did go out for the occasional coffee with him.

• We hear of one of Jean's aunts in this episode, with the dialogue suggesting that she lives in Essex. We must assume that this is Aunt Cybil as Money to Burn (also written by Donald James) confirms that she has two aunts, Cybil and Mathilda, and that the latter lives in Sussex.

• Only You, Jeff? Emil Cavall0-Smith materialises as a ghost and can see and talk to Marty but only when he is himself on the verge of death (see below).

• Ghosts and Ghoulies... When Emil Cavallo-Smith is left to stew in the cold store by Jeff and Marty, he hovers close to death and Marty calls out his ghost. Marty explains that he is able to do this as Emil is in limbo, a type of suspended animation. Marty can then interrogate Emil about where Jansen has taken Jeannie...

• The Vehicles... Appearing in this episode were the following wonders of transport...

	1959 Land Rover Series II (Police Vehicle) Registration VYR 714
	1968 Vauxhall Victor FD 2000 Registration RXD 996F Driven by Jeff Randall	Also appeared in: Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) - used extensively throughout the series Department S - 'The Last Train to Redbridge', 'The Man from X'
	1961 Wolseley 6/99 Registration 489 BLU	Also appeared in: Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) - 'Who Killed Cock Robin' Gideon's Way - 'The Tin God', 'The V Men', 'The White Rat', 'Gang War', 'The Great Plane Robbery', 'The Millionaire's Daughter' The Saint - 'Escape Route', 'The Power Artists', 'Legacy for the Saint' The Champions - 'The Fanatics', 'Twelve Hours', 'The Body Snatchers', 'Full Circle' Department S - 'Six Days'
	1968 Ford Zephyr Deluxe MkIV Registration PXD 976F	Also appeared in: Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) - 'My Late Lamented Friend and Partner', 'A Sentimental Journey', 'You Can Always Find A Fall Guy', 'Who Killed Cock Robin?', 'The Trouble With Women', 'Whoever Heard of a Ghost Dying?', 'Never Trust A Ghost', 'A Disturbing Case', 'Somebody Just Walked Over My Grave'  Department S - 'The Bones of Byrom Blain' and other episodes
	1968 Lancia Fulvia Coupé Registration UBY 96F Driven by Emil Cavallo-Smith	Also appeared in: Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) - 'Never Trust a Ghost', 'Money to Burn' Department S - used extensively in the series (Annabelle Hurst's car); and 'Last Train to Redbridge' (villains' car)
	1963 Wolseley 6/110 Automatic Registration 7976 PH Driven by Sam Grimes
	1962 Thames Trader Mk II Registration 916 WAA Incidental Vehicle	Also appeared in: Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) - 'Just for the Record'
	1964 Austin Mini Super Deluxe Mk I Registration BAP 245B Driven by Jean Hopkirk	Also appeared in: Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) - 'My Late Lamented Friend and Partner', 'All Work and No Pay', 'You Can Always Find a Fall Guy', 'Never Trust a Ghost', 'Just for the Record', 'Could You Recognise the Man Again?', 'A Disturbing Case', 'Somebody Just Walked Over My Grave', 'The Ghost Talks' Department S - 'The Man from X' The Saint - 'The Time to Die' The Persuaders! - 'Greensleeves'
	1963 Austin Mini Cooper S Mk I Registration 754 FLP Driven by Jean Hopkirk

• Seen It All Before? The visit to Battersea Funfair was achieved through a mix of stock footage and in-studio filming. The stock footage had previously been seen in The Baron: Epitaph for a Hero and The Silent Enemy, an episode of The Champions.

• At 25 minutes and 47 seconds, Jeff is on the road, chasing Sam Grimes. The camera cuts to inside Grimes' car and he checks his rear view mirror. He should be seeing a reversed mirror-image, but Jeff's number plate reads normally proving that this shot was in fact flipped horizontally.

Images © ITV Studios, 1969

• It wouldn't be ITC without a glorious fight sequence performed by people entirely different to the actors involved, now would it? Well, we get good value in that department when Jeff Randall and Sam Grimes (Timothy West) lay into each other in Grimes' office at 28 minutes and 17 seconds. Much of the set-to is played out by stunt artistes Rocky Taylor (Jeff) and Romo Gorrara (Grimes), with occasional inserts featuring the actors. Ordinarily in such sequences the stuntmen's faces are hidden from the camera but director Cyril Frankel includes several shots which clearly reveal that Messrs. Pratt and West were off-set enjoying a cuppa and a ciggie while their stand-ins did the tough guy routine... 

Images © ITV Studios, 1969

• At 35 minutes and 36 seconds, Jeannie pulls up in her red Austin Mini outside the Cavallo-Smith Cold Storage building. Only it isn't her Mini - it carries the registration number 754 FLP and not the familiar BAP 245B one (the car she was seen driving along country roads shortly beforehand).

• Jean tries to escape from Jansen's clutches and starts to drive off in the 754 FLP Mini at 39 minutes and 17 second. She swings the car around to find that Jansen has moved Jeff's Vauxhall to block her exit. He jumps out of the car and confronts her. When Marty witnesses Jansen driving off in the Mini with Jean his captive - at 40 minutes and 3 seconds - it has magically transformed itself back into BAP 245B!

Images © ITV Studios, 1969

• And Finally... While both Marty and Jeff are understandably highly concerned for the safety of Jean, it seems somewhat excessive that they are prepared to leave Emil in the cold store to push him to the point of death so that Marty can interrogate his ghost. Jeff could not have known at what point Emil would actually die from exposure and while they didn't put him in the freezer in the first place, they did rescue him and then threw him back in there again. One of those occasions where the dividing line between hero and villain is stretched very thin and indeed overstepped by our heroes...

Plotline: Scoton Productions / ITC • UK Transmissions by Simon Coward and Alan Hayes
Review by Alan Hayes • Declassified by Alan Hayes
with thanks to Vince Cox, Alys Hayes, John Holburn,
Anthony McKay and Andrew Pixley

All timings given on this page relate to the Blu-ray editions of this episode