As has previously happened on occasion here, just for today Shuker In MovieLand transforms into Shuker In TVLand, in order to document my progress in tracking down two mysterious TV episodes that I watched almost 50 years ago but which left such a lasting impression upon me that I can still recall both of them in considerable detail yet have always been thoroughly perplexed as to what series they appeared in. Recently, I made an appeal for assistance in various FB groups, and here in slightly edited, abridged form, is what I wrote and what has transpired so far. Can you help? Read on.
23 October 2020
Back in the late 1960s/early 1970s when I was a child, there was a series on British TV in which each episode was self-contained and told a story with a chilling twist at the end. I can remember two episodes clearly.
One of these featured a man who remarried not long after his first wife vanished in mysterious circumstances and had been certified as dead, causing him to have a bad reputation in the local village. His second wife was younger than him and if I remember correctly was rich, but chose to ignore the rumours about him. The husband owned a talking parrot. One day, inexplicably, she found herself locked inside their bedroom with the parrot, and discovered that the thick window was sealed too, so that she couldn't open it or call out. She looked through the window and down in the back garden below was her husband, digging a very large grave-shaped rectangular hole. He looked up at her, and grinned diabolically. Panic-stricken, she turned to the parrot, who had suddenly started shrieking, but not like a parrot, instead more like a woman. Then it shouted something like "No George, no, please no!" (I can't remember the exact words or name), followed by more screams. The camera then panned back to the wife's terrified face as it all became horrendously clear – her husband had murdered his first wife, in the presence of the parrot, who, unbenownst to him, had memorised the wife's dying screams and pleas and was able to imitate them. The episode then ended as the imprisoned, horrified woman contemplated her dreadful impending fate.
The second episode featured a mental institution for those judged incapable of release through severe mental incapacity or instability. One of the inmates was an elderly wheelchair-bound aristocratic man with the title of Colonel(?), who I definitely remember was played by famous British actor John Le Mesurier. He was attended to by another fairly old inmate, almost in the capacity of his butler or manservant. One day a young woman visited the institution, and after chatting at length to the butler/attendant inmate, who seemed very mild-mannered, rational, and eminently sane, she felt certain that he was safe to be released. She duly contacted the authorities, who agreed with her and thus arranged this accordingly. On the day of his release, the Colonel sadly told his now-erstwhile butler/attendant how very much he would miss him, and gave him something like an ornate, heavy paperweight as a parting gift. Not long afterwards, a female cyclist seen cycling along a road was brutally attacked and murdered by someone, who was not shown. However, the cyclist's body was later discovered, alongside which was a very distinctive, ornate, heavy paperweight... The final scene took place inside the institution, where the Colonel said "Welcome back" to the butler/attendant, who had indeed been readmitted, not long after his release, in fact. Clearly, however, the paperweight's presence at the scene of the cyclist's death confirmed that it was he, the butler/attendant, who had killed the cyclist, within only a short time of having been set free, and that the young woman's judgment of him as sane had been a terrible, fatal error.
If anyone has any suggestions what this series could be, I'd greatly welcome them. I've tried determining it by researching John Le Mesurier's numerous TV credits, but all to no avail. Incidentally, it is possible that these two episodes were actually from different series, but even if so, they were screened at much the same time.
24 October 2020
Partial success at long last!! Longstanding FB friend Guy Trash has discovered that the episode featuring the unexpectedly murderous butler-type attendant to the elderly aristocratic man played by John Le Mesurier in a mental home was entitled 'Mr Loveday's Little Outing' (based upon an Evelyn Waugh short story of the same title, first published in 1936). Directed by Donald McWhinnie and screened on 1 June 1973, this episode was part of a 6-episode series from 1973 entitled Between the Wars (not to be confused with an entirely different but identically-titled TV series from 1978), with each episode a separate story. Mr Loveday was the butler/attendant, who was played by Ronald Fraser, with Le Mesurier's character a Lord (Lord Moping) rather than a Colonel (and the young woman responsible for earning Loveday his ill-advised release the Lord's visiting daughter Angela), but I'd remembered the basic plot almost perfectly. So, one down, one to go! (Worth noting is that various later versions of 'Mr Loveday's Little Outing' have been filmed, of which the most notable, a one-off 30-min TV production by BBC4 that was originally screened in 2006, starred David Warner as Lord Moping, Prunella Scales as his disinterested wife Lady Moping, and Andrew Sachs as the fiendish Loveday – a far cry indeed from his most famous, beloved role as bungling hotel waiter Manuel from Barcelona in the classic BBC TV sitcom Fawlty Towers, which, coincidentally, also starred Prunella Scales, as Sybil Fawlty.)
It may be that the parrot episode is another one from Between the Wars, but out of the six that were produced I can't find out any plot details for four of them. Of the remaining two, 'Mr Loveday's Little Outing' (the fourth to be screened in the series) is now fully accounted for, and the only other one left (which was actually the first to be screened in the series, on 11 May 1973, and was entitled 'Now Lies She There') concerned a woman who fell in love with a lion-tamer, so it's clearly not that one. For the sake of completeness, the titles of the other four episodes from Between the Wars, as uncovered by me here on IMDb's website, are: 'Yes, Aunt', 'The Greeting', 'Voyage in the Dark', and 'The Silver Mask'.
Incidentally, although it is not the mystery parrot-featuring episode that I am seeking from whatever series it appeared in during the late 1960s/early 1970s, one episode from the much later TV series Tales of the Unexpected (based upon Roald Dahl's writings, and consisting of 9 multi-episode seasons screened from 1979 to 1988) did feature a talking parrot at the centre of its twist in the tale, but the storyline was entirely different. Its human stars were Frank Converse, Sondra Locke, and Charles Hallahan. As for the very sizeable, imposing parrot featuring in that episode (#93, originally screened on 4 August 1984), this was a great black palm cockatoo Probosciger aterrimus, native to New Guinea and northern Australia's Cape York Peninsula. If you would like to watch the entire episode, which was entitled 'Bird of Prey', please click here.
25 October 2020
Further to my ultimately successful search (courtesy of FB friend Guy Trash) for the identity of an episode screened on British TV during the early 1970s regarding an unexpectedly murderous butler-like attendant (played by Ronald Fraser) to an elderly Lord (played by John le Mesurier) in a mental hospital that turned out to be based upon a short story by Evelyn Laugh entitled 'Mr Loveday's Little Outing' (Mr Loveday being the murderous attendant): please click here to access a free online pdf of that short story if you would like to read it. I'd love to trace the actual episode itself online, if it still survives, which featured in a series entitled Between the Wars (1973).
14 November 2020
As of today, still no luck either in tracking down any episodes (or even any photo-stills) online from Between the Wars, or in identifying or tracking down the mysterious parrot-featuring 'twist-in-the-tale' episode described above, but the search continues. In particular, someone somewhere out there must know what that latter parrot episode is, and perhaps by posting this account online via my Shuker In MovieLand blog, the long-awaited answer will be revealed. And if it is, rest assured that full details and links if existing will be posted here pronto!
My sincere thanks to Guy Trash and to all of my other FB friends and colleagues who diligently offered up opinions and/or conducted searches of their own regarding the two mystery TV episodes detailed here – I am as ever exceedingly grateful to you!
And to view a complete listing of all of my
Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film/TV reviews and articles (each one instantly
accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
No comments:
Post a Comment