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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2022 13:35:23 GMT
I got the dvd set the other day, 17 discs. The first episode is the only time we see Maggie Forbes husband played by Leslie Schofield, he's also in the police but is fed up with the job, he has a Regan-like rant about the names he's called by the public- fuzz, filth, fascist, then later in a 'Ringer'-like moment he gets shot by an armed robber played by Brian Croucher. Its a bit weird why they write him out so early.. GC
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Post by Arthur Pringle on Mar 14, 2022 19:57:37 GMT
Yes you'd think they would've waited a few episodes until they offed him, she seems to get over his death very quickly as well.
Below is a video added to yt just a few days ago featuring Paul Moriarty discussing The Gentle Touch, he mentions The Sweeney at 19min 25s. I didn't watch the whole video so not sure what else he talks about but seems like a nice fella.
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Post by Arthur Pringle on Mar 15, 2022 18:07:23 GMT
The episode I watched last night had a scene where Maggie Forbes son is watching the film 'The Beast Must Die' on tv, this is a werewolf based horror film from 1974 & was directed by the same man who directed this Gentle Touch episode ( and 3 others according to imdb ), Paul Annett. This story was about the murder of a prostitute & was quite ridiculous even for 1980 in terms of how prostitutes were portrayed, the actresses featured as prostitutes were dressed in clothing that looked like fancy dress & had ridiculous foreign accents. Not sure it was intended to be comic given the storyline but it certainly played that way. To add to the strangeness, Forbes son was appearing in a school play as a monk & much of the episode had scenes of his mum & grandad ( played by James Ottaway, 'Uncle Billy' in 'Messenger Of The Gods' & Bob Hilton in Auf W Pet's 'Last Rites' ) making him a monk's habit for his costume. Quite bizarre.
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Mar 16, 2022 22:16:39 GMT
I think this last review by Arthur tends to support my view that the BBC were second best to ITV on police and drama programmes in general. There were exceptions, Shoestring I thought was excellent, but overall ITV were better at these. Auf Weidersein Pet is an example, the first two (ITV) series were brilliant, the later BBC ones were, imo, garbage.
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Post by Arthur Pringle on Mar 17, 2022 19:40:10 GMT
'Something Blue' is a very dated story concerning a school friend of Maggie Forbes son who invites him round to watch a supposedly p**nographic film. The brief clip we see of it looks like a standard nude scene in any film you might see on tv but when Forbes walks in on it she is horrified, describing it as 'filth' Playing Steve Forbes school friends are Simon Gipps-Kent, quite a familiar 'child actor' of the 70's ( here aged about 22 he died from morphine poisoning aged 28 ) & Christopher Hamill, also about 22 here, better known as Limahl ( an anagram of Hamill ), singer with Kajagoogoo. Something Blue is one of 3 episodes written by Sweeney & Minder writer Tony Hoare. There is a subplot about a gang of shoplifters which is very similar to one of the Minder episodes Hoare later wrote, 'If Money Be The Food Of Love Play On' According to imdb the adult film clip featured in the episode is taken from 'On The Game', a film by Stanley Long, best known for making the 'Adventures Of...' sex comedies. Funnily enough Jill Gascoine herself appeared in such a film 'Confessions Of A Pop Performer', she also narrated a 1961 short film called 'Nudist Memories' starring Anna Karen from 'On The Buses', so she'd been in a bit of 'filth' herself!
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Post by Arthur Pringle on Mar 24, 2022 19:05:40 GMT
Sweeney writer Roger Marshall wrote 8 Gentle Touch episodes, I mentioned before that one of them is a remake of 'Feet Of Clay' & even features Joss Ackland in the same sort of role, it seems Marshall has a habit of reusing stories as I've noticed it in 'Public Eye' as well & in a GT episode I watched last night called 'Shame'. It starred Tenniel Evans as a book shop owner who is falsely accused of assaulting a child, the accuser is the child himself. Tenniel Evans starred in a 1969 film called 'Walk A Crooked Path' in which he plays a boy's boarding school teacher falsely accused by a pupil of sexual assault. I'm sure Marshall got the idea from this film & probably suggested Evans for the part.
The Gentle Touch seems to to be particularly dated compared to other shows of the past. Maggie Forbes comes home to find her son with his girlfriend in the lounge, despite the girl wearing very modest clothing Forbes describes her as a 'scrubber' with no justification. Later in the same episode Forbes herself dolls herself up to go on a date & wears a low cut dress without a bra. In another episode a character gropes a woman he's living with, squeezing her breast hard whilst telling her about a another woman he's planning on seeing the same night, they both joke about it. Whilst they can censor objectionable words they can't alter the very dated attitudes which aren't so much offensive as just plain strange.
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Mar 24, 2022 19:29:17 GMT
I remember watching little snatches of it at the time and not being impressed with it. I just generally think it isn't very good.
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Post by Dirty Epic on Mar 26, 2022 12:44:31 GMT
I remember watching little snatches of it at the time and not being impressed with it. I just generally think it isn't very good. I caught a few after Special Branch/Hazell on TPTV and it's kind of how I saw it Carty, alright but nothing I'd go overboard to have. Still compared to a lot of the tosh drama being made now it's like Sweeney level compared to that.
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DI Alex Drake
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Quite frankly, your guess is as good as mine.
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Post by DI Alex Drake on Mar 26, 2022 22:10:06 GMT
The subject of the public hating/ not trusting the police comes up time and time again in 80s programmes (not least Ashes to Ashes!). Was it really that bad?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2022 22:29:11 GMT
'Something Blue' is a very dated story concerning a school friend of Maggie Forbes son who invites him round to watch a supposedly p**nographic film. The brief clip we see of it looks like a standard nude scene in any film you might see on tv but when Forbes walks in on it she is horrified, describing it as 'filth' Playing Steve Forbes school friends are Simon Gipps-Kent, quite a familiar 'child actor' of the 70's ( here aged about 22 he died from morphine poisoning aged 28 ) & Christopher Hamill, also about 22 here, better known as Limahl ( an anagram of Hamill ), singer with Kajagoogoo. Something Blue is one of 3 episodes written by Sweeney & Minder writer Tony Hoare. There is a subplot about a gang of shoplifters which is very similar to one of the Minder episodes Hoare later wrote, 'If Money Be The Food Of Love Play On' According to imdb the adult film clip featured in the episode is taken from 'On The Game', a film by Stanley Long, best known for making the 'Adventures Of...' sex comedies. Funnily enough Jill Gascoine herself appeared in such a film 'Confessions Of A Pop Performer', she also narrated a 1961 short film called 'Nudist Memories' starring Anna Karen from 'On The Buses', so she'd been in a bit of 'filth' herself! Saw Limahl last year at a 80s festival, and funnily enough then twice a couple of weeks apart in 2017 whilst I shopping in Tesco and then Sainsburys, looking his normal cool self!
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