Though not planned, I found myself watching a number of 1960s’ shows and there are some I have come to really love. Inspired by the now-defunct TV Minus 50 blog, I spent a month in 1968 and, having thoroughly enjoyed it, decided to spend a lot more time in the decade.

I’m spending a week with each year’s telly – this week, that year. As I don’t possess an actual time machine, there are a few limits on what is available for me to watch – I may not always get to see the exact episode from that day – but, hopefully, there should be something watchable every day.

1960

A lot of the programmes I’m familiar with are from the latter half of the decade. After putting a schedule together from this week’s listings, I realise just how much of a step into the dark this is as I have never seen any of the shows before. How exciting!

This week all of my ITV programmes are coming from Granada and ABC.

18th February
Ivanhoe
Granada

Roger Moore plays a medieval knight doing all the good things knights do. For instance, in this episode, he is escorting a stroppy Irish princess. Having seen a few episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood, it felt like similar territory watching Sir Ivanhoe gallivanting on horseback in between sword showmanship with bad guys. There seems to be a bit more location work seen in Ivanhoe, whilst the episodes of Robin Hood I have seen are very studio-bound. This occupies a similar teatime slot and I can see the appeal because I find them both great fun. The villains are wonderfully pantomime-style and you are guaranteed action every episode.

19th February
The Four Just Men ‘The Battle of the Bridge’
Granada

It works out nicely that Granada has given me the very first episode this week. Four men who first met during World War Two are brought back together when their former commanding officer dies and leaves them some money, which is to be used to fight injustice. This episode is a flashback to their wartime mission together. Nazis, resistance, fire fights and a bridge being blown up – this was quite something and it is an awful lot to put into the first episode of a series. This is filmic yet they pull it off in a half hour television programme.

The Lone Ranger ‘Bad Medicine’
BBC Television

There are loads of Westerns on this week – at least one most days. The Lone Ranger was action-packed from the start as it opens with two brothers robbing a bank. Our eponymous hero soon sets out after them. Shoot-outs, horse pursuits and a bit of climatic tension all helped to make this gripping. 1960 must have been fantastic if you loved Westerns and clearly quite tiresome if not. I haven’t seen many Westerns and though I enjoyed this, I have the feeling it could all get a bit samey by the end of the week.

20th February
77 Sunset Strip ‘Vicious Circle’
ABC

I would class this as a detective drama, I suppose. A young man is kidnapped and, after the ransom is paid, his father isn’t interested in going to the police, believing it will cause more trouble for him. The son ends up engaging our leads, two private detectives. They are partly assisted by a young lad, who at one point begins combing his hair in the middle of a gun fight. He is clearly meant to be a cool, modern guy but considering a wounded man lay bleeding nearby, I thought this one action made him look a prick. The show is certainly slightly more glamorous than everything else I am watching this week.

21st February
Maverick ‘The Cats of Paradise’
ABC

It’s another Western, although this one was not what I expected. This episode involved a cat lady, theft, murders, and several people who all wanted the Sheriff dead. I quickly warmed to our lead, Brett Maverick (James Garner), who after being fleeced by the cat lady, finds the Sheriff gunning for him. There was not a great deal of fighting and the episode had a fairly light-hearted tone, with Brett providing most of the quips. Maybe I can get on with these Westerns after all.

Face to Face
BBC Television

This week, John Freeman interviews Henry Moore. The name seemed familiar and the description told me Moore was a sculptor but otherwise I knew nothing about him. I have little interest in art yet decided to give this show a go, in part because I’m watching a fair bit of ITV this week. This was actually an interesting look at an interview from that time. After some establishing shots of the room, the camera never left Moore. It was odd to never cut away to the interviewer. I was left wondering if production teams assumed the audience had no interest in the journalist so it would be best to keep the focus on the interviewee. Modern interview programmes tend to be ‘chat shows’ and it is much more of a two-way conversation. The interviewer can make a lot of difference to what we get out of someone. I think I would like to see something in between the two. This was intense, detailed and definitely highbrow.

22nd February
Wagon Train ‘The Tracey Sadler Story’
Granada

It’s a day ending in Y so there is another Western on. After enjoying Maverick so much I had high hopes but Wagon Train left me a little flat. A woman is seeking to get her son back, who was taken from her when she was wrongfully sent to prison for 12 years. It was heavy and emotional and soppy. The one thing I can say is that these Westerns do all seem to vary more than I expected.

23rd February
William Tell
Granada

I knew little about William Tell before watching this. Basically just that he was Swiss and I thought he was sort of like Robin Hood. In the titles, he shoots an apple off a lad’s head with a bow and arrow. He’s in some sort of resistance and sends his mate to get a letter containing a list of names that must not get into the wrong hands. This does not prove easy. It gets hidden in a shoe that turns out to belong to the Lamberger, the big baddie – literally, the fellow is huge. One of the soldiers was played by Derren Nesbitt, whose voice I recognised under his mountains of armour.

24th February
Highway Patrol ‘Detour to Death’
Granada

I felt the title adequately described this programme as in it contains police officers patrolling the highways. The ‘highway’ bit tells us we are in the US so I expected high-speed pursuits with the baddies shooting back at the cops. No such luck. This episode saw the bad guys setting up road blocks with detour signs, then robbing the drivers at knife point. Yet it has to be one of the dullest cop shows I have ever watched. The action just seemed to be so slow, which is never ideal but especially not when it’s only a half hour show. Aside from one fight – and I use the word loosely because it was more of a struggle – there was very little action. The cops must clearly be the regular characters in this but any distinctive character was lacking. I just couldn’t find anything decent to cling to and the programme dragged.

What you could have won – missing and unavailable

Here are some of the listings that intrigued me but I was unable to watch this week.

UNAVAILABLE Spy-Catcher – ‘A series of true stories of the search for spies in wartime based on the experiences of Lt.-Col. Oreste Pinto.’ There were four series of this and, oddly, a couple of radio series were also made and its broadcast overlapped with that of the third series.

UNAVAILABLE Glencannon – I’ve been able to find out little about this sitcom following merchant sailors, which makes me ponder whether it has ever had a repeat. Every episode exists but has never had a release.

MISSING Studio Two – ‘An ABC Advertising Magazine’ this programme invites you to join them for ‘lively shopping information’. I have heard about these advertising shows and would be keen to see one as they were banned within a few years.

UNKNOWN No Passport – ‘Richard Dimbleby suggests a holiday that needs No Passport. A journey to The English Lakes with David Dimbleby and Jonathan Dimbleby. The second of four films to help you choose your holiday.’ Who would pass up the opportunity to see the Dimbleby clan on holiday?

The post Back in time for TV: 18-24 February 1960 appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

An example of this latter development was seen in a recent episode of ATV’s “private eye” series “77, Sunset Strip”.

In his air-conditioned offices in the heart of Los Angeles, Stu Bailey, senior partner in the private investigation company of Bailey & Spencer, suddenly found himself in need of vital information concerning a case on which he was working. He heard of a lead from a similar case reported in Honolulu.

In a matter of minutes he had made contact with his Hawaiian opposite number, Tom Lapaka (one of the “leads” in ATVs detective series “Hawaiian Eye”). The information he wanted was readily available and another piece had been fitted into the puzzle he was trying to solve.

Science has made possible this co-operation at great distance; but this incident also served to show the vastly different settings in which the stories told in two of the most popular series to come to the television screen are acted out.

For it is a far cry from the air-conditioned suite of offices where Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer, “Rookie”, “J.R.” and the inimitable Roscoe -not forgetting the glamorous Suzanne — operate and have their headquarters to the tropical setting of the South Sea islands of their “Hawaiian Eye” counterparts.

Traffic passes outside the office in Los Angeles, bumper to bumper, but the pace is more leisurely in Honolulu. Being active businessmen as well as investigators, Bailey, Spencer and company must conform to wearing business suits. It is only when their inquiries take them “south of the Border” that they can exchange jackets and trousers for bush shirts and shorts. The order of dress for Tracy Steel and Tom Lapaka, however, is much more casual: their wardrobe consists mainly of linen suits, multicoloured “hot shirts” and panama hats.

When pressure of business demands some relaxation, the office staff at No. 77 have the nearby cocktail bar and restaurant of Dino’s in which to relax, there to listen to all that is latest in modern jazz, played by the resident trio.

Down Hawaii way, Tracy and Tom have their own swimming-pool, built into their office compound, and when the atmosphere surrounding a case starts rivalling the mounting temperature outside a cool plunge into the pool, with a “header” taken almost directly from their desks, can do much to get even the most complicated piece of investigation into perspective.

The pace they know out of doors is more leisurely —the climate demands this—and if road travel is almost as harassing as any Los Angeles driver has come to accept as being natural, the office’s pet taxi-driver, Kim, knows the back roads and unofficial short-cuts so well around the island that the two detectives are never likely to be delayed because of local, Hawaiian-style traffic jams.

When a case has been successfully completed and there is time to relax — even to celebrate another job well done — the laughing voice of songstress Connie Stevens is always on hand at the club at which she works to add to the pleasure of the occasion. Connie plays “Cricket” in the series. She may appear madcap, with a quaint choice in hats, but she cannot hide the fact that she wears her heart on her sleeve for the two private detectives.

That her typical woman’s jealousy has much to feed on is seen in the number of occasions when she must stand by and see her twin beaus become involved with some of the loveliest women ever to join a ship and sail south across the Pacific to romance, adventure and, sometimes, involvement in crimes of which they are the innocent victims.

To such lovely maidens in distress the services of Steel and Lapaka are always available. Though at times they may seem to fall under the spell of these beautiful women, with the added inducement of tropical nights, balmy breezes and Hawaiian-style music, their surrender is never complete. For their agreed principle of “business first” always prevents too many lasting complications, which, of course, is very much to the liking of the ever-hopeful “Cricket”.

Meanwhile, back at the “Strip”, the latest “77, Sunset Strip” series has seen Gerald Lloyd Kooksan III (“Kookie”, to the uninitiated) emerge as an investigator in his own right, with a distinct leaning towards using scientific methods of detection which no one who recalls the parking-lot attendant of two years ago with his undisciplined quiff of hair and a peculiar style of speech which earned itself the description of “Kookie talk” would have thought him capable. Certainly the two senior partners in the business have been surprised at the emergence of this “new Kookie” — but pleased, too, for here, now, is an additional and capable member of their investigation team.

Stu Bailey continues to grow wiser and more handsome as the grey hairs collect around his temples. He is still prepared to fly to the ends of the earth in pursuit of a clue. He still is given to setting female hearts a-flutter, but never finds the true girl (though Dorothy Provine came pretty close to providing the answer in one of this year’s stories!).

When not on the job, Jeff Spencer continues his liking for strumming his guitar as an accompaniment to the Latin love songs which he learned in an earlier chapter of his life.

Roscoe’s successes “playing the ponies” are no more marked than in previous years, though his contacts with bookies, race-track touts and all the other types of ne’er-do-wells who are attracted to the sport continue to be invaluable to the detective agency.

If “Rookie” has grown up, then the “hot-rod generation” have found a new champion in the new odd-job boy in the firm. His liking for a conversation in which initial letters take the place of words may occasionally confuse and irritate his colleagues, but he has already proved himself to Stu, Jeff and “Rookie” to be a handy six-footer to have around in an emergency.

Suzanne of the reception desk continues to blossom — in looks and in the more important parts she is given in the stories — which is a development to everyone’s liking.

It is true to say that life and business continues to flourish at 77, Sunset Strip, just as it does, thousands of miles away, in Hawaii.

There may be only occasional contact between the two organisations, but in one thing they have a common purpose: they provide excellent entertainment for British television viewers. And the vast correspondence which the two series — and the leading artistes in each — prompts from these viewers bears testimony to their popularity.

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