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Post by Arthur Pringle on Jun 13, 2020 17:24:03 GMT
There's definitely a similarity between Wands & Scorpio from 'Dirty Harry'.
I think The Professionals episode 'Old Dog With New Tricks', where Phil Davis takes Pamela Stephenson hostage with a grenade in a car park, borrowed from this episode.
Regan wanting to get it over with by killing them is at odds with Carter risking his neck by taking the shampoo & tinned nosh out to them. Easy for him to say 'you don't have to do it' when it's not him doing it, he also didn't have the responsibility of giving the order to kill them or pull the trigger.
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Post by Dirty Epic on Jun 13, 2020 17:31:26 GMT
The Trevor Preston penned, Special Branch episode All The Kings Men has a similar seige/hostage storyline too.
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Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on Jun 13, 2020 17:51:29 GMT
There's definitely a similarity between Wands & Scorpio from 'Dirty Harry'.
I think The Professionals episode 'Old Dog With New Tricks', where Phil Davis takes Pamela Stephenson hostage with a grenade in a car park, borrowed from this episode.
Regan wanting to get it over with by killing them is at odds with Carter risking his neck by taking the shampoo & tinned nosh out to them. Easy for him to say 'you don't have to do it' when it's not him doing it, he also didn't have the responsibility of giving the order to kill them or pull the trigger.
Yes, Harry Callaghan's idea of good police work is very accurate shooting with a large calibre weapon. Dirty Harry is a good film though, Magnum Force also, beyond that a bit rubbish. To me, I'm not keen on the location. It would have been better in the shopping centre but they couldn't do that as Sparky mentions.
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Jun 14, 2020 7:12:09 GMT
There's definitely a similarity between Wands & Scorpio from 'Dirty Harry'.
I think The Professionals episode 'Old Dog With New Tricks', where Phil Davis takes Pamela Stephenson hostage with a grenade in a car park, borrowed from this episode.
Regan wanting to get it over with by killing them is at odds with Carter risking his neck by taking the shampoo & tinned nosh out to them. Easy for him to say 'you don't have to do it' when it's not him doing it, he also didn't have the responsibility of giving the order to kill them or pull the trigger.
Yes, Harry Callaghan's idea of good police work is very accurate shooting with a large calibre weapon. Dirty Harry is a good film though, Magnum Force also, beyond that a bit rubbish. To me, I'm not keen on the location. It would have been better in the shopping centre but they couldn't do that as Sparky mentions. Saw a bit of Dirty Harry years back - and didn't think much to it - just couldn't get in to it. I watched it again more recently, and really got into it - and was left thinking "what the hell was I thinking..." it is a great film.
I worked on a film about 7 years ago, and that had extras dressed as Russian solders running around a small section of shopping Centre in Huddersfield - with machine guns!
It was a Sunday, and some of the shops were open too....
If they shot "Thou Shalt Not" today - they would have more than likely been allowed to have done it in a Shopping Centre. They would have taken over a suitable empty shop unit (plenty of them these days) and dressed it as a bank.
Though, the University Campus location is a great one - as it makes the whole episode feel closed in and isolated. In a shopping centre setting, it would have had a different feel.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2020 16:35:41 GMT
I think it’s just crazy when they chop bits out! Especially a series like the Sweeney, which ya know full well When it happens because you’re so familiar with it, I wouldn’t Mind but the picture is crap on itv 4 anyway. I suppose if ya haven’t got the box set then it will have to do, but since I’ve got it I’d rather stick the disk on and watch it uncut in better quality!
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Jun 14, 2020 17:22:30 GMT
I think it’s just crazy when they chop bits out! Especially a series like the Sweeney, which ya know full well When it happens because you’re so familiar with it, I wouldn’t Mind but the picture is crap on itv 4 anyway. I suppose if ya haven’t got the box set then it will have to do, but since I’ve got it I’d rather stick the disk on and watch it uncut in better quality! I had all the episodes on VHS recorded from Channel 5 in 1998 - and they lasted me until the Network box sets came out in 2004. I used to catch the ITV4 repeats - and got so p*ssed off with the picture quality - as they were using possibly 2nd gen broadcast masters.
The original broadcasts would have been directly from Telecine - at Thames, and fed into the network. When the series was repeated in the 80s - ITV would have made a transfer master to 1" tape for each episode. So when ITV regions wanted to repeat the series, they would be sent a copy of this.
It's a copy of this master that ITV4 have been showing for years- Bumps, Scratches, Joins and bad colour balance etc. So whatever it's been copied to, down the line, the faults have gone with it as no one could be bothered to tidy them up. Doing a fresh transfer from the Negatives would have been considered too expensive.
Besides, I gather Network had issues with the original Negs, and a lot of work had to be done on them beforehand too.
It's been said before, that editing stuff like the Sweeney can be very messy, as each story/episode is a very tight plot - and everything is crucial. So doing bad edits can make a dogs dinner of the episode.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2020 17:41:28 GMT
Very informative Sparky! its funny I remember watching the re runs of the Sweeney on tv in 85’ and I don’t recall moaning about the picture quality then, maybe it’s just we get more fussy as we get older and along with technology getting better, one just gets more picky ha
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Post by The Saint on Jun 14, 2020 18:21:02 GMT
I think it’s just crazy when they chop bits out! Especially a series like the Sweeney, which ya know full well When it happens because you’re so familiar with it, I wouldn’t Mind but the picture is crap on itv 4 anyway. I suppose if ya haven’t got the box set then it will have to do, but since I’ve got it I’d rather stick the disk on and watch it uncut in better quality! I had all the episodes on VHS recorded from Channel 5 in 1998 - and they lasted me until the Network box sets came out in 2004. I used to catch the ITV4 repeats - and got so p*ssed off with the picture quality - as they were using possibly 2nd gen broadcast masters. The original broadcasts would have been directly from Telecine - at Thames, and fed into the network. When the series was repeated in the 80s - ITV would have made a transfer master to 1" tape for each episode. So when ITV regions wanted to repeat the series, they would be sent a copy of this. It's a copy of this master that ITV4 have been showing for years- Bumps, Scratches, Joins and bad colour balance etc. So whatever it's been copied to, down the line, the faults have gone with it as no one could be bothered to tidy them up. Doing a fresh transfer from the Negatives would have been considered too expensive.
Besides, I gather Network had issues with the original Negs, and a lot of work had to be done on them beforehand too. It's been said before, that editing stuff like the Sweeney can be very messy, as each story/episode is a very tight plot - and everything is crucial. So doing bad edits can make a dogs dinner of the episode. That’s very interesting about the broadcast tapes Sparky, so I am right in saying the original broadcasts from the 70s would be noticeably better quality than what ITV4 is currently showing? The Saint
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Jun 14, 2020 19:07:14 GMT
I had all the episodes on VHS recorded from Channel 5 in 1998 - and they lasted me until the Network box sets came out in 2004. I used to catch the ITV4 repeats - and got so p*ssed off with the picture quality - as they were using possibly 2nd gen broadcast masters. The original broadcasts would have been directly from Telecine - at Thames, and fed into the network. When the series was repeated in the 80s - ITV would have made a transfer master to 1" tape for each episode. So when ITV regions wanted to repeat the series, they would be sent a copy of this. It's a copy of this master that ITV4 have been showing for years- Bumps, Scratches, Joins and bad colour balance etc. So whatever it's been copied to, down the line, the faults have gone with it as no one could be bothered to tidy them up. Doing a fresh transfer from the Negatives would have been considered too expensive.
Besides, I gather Network had issues with the original Negs, and a lot of work had to be done on them beforehand too. It's been said before, that editing stuff like the Sweeney can be very messy, as each story/episode is a very tight plot - and everything is crucial. So doing bad edits can make a dogs dinner of the episode. That’s very interesting about the broadcast tapes Sparky, so I am right in saying the original broadcasts from the 70s would be noticeably better quality than what ITV4 is currently showing? The Saint Without a doubt.
The original broadcasts would have been (even David Wickes admitted this) directly from the 16mm film print, fresh from the Lab Printer.
It would not have been shown anywhere else - so no scratches, no joins, or bumps and no colour fading.
This would have been run from Thames and fed into the ITV Network - for each contractor to "patch" in to show the prog in it's respective area.
It's likely that these prints would have been used to also make the Video Masters for the 80s repeats. The prints by this time, would then have been quite a few years old, and also run a fair few times to make more masters when the show was sold abroad. If film isn't correctly looked after, it degrades very quickly. They've only just learned recently that storing films at the correct temp can stop it degrading and fading.
The quality would from the fresh film would have been great, though old 70s TV sets (and 80s ones for that matter) wouldn't be able to reproduce this quality and therefore show less defects.
I think the defects are much more noticeable on the new TV sets we all watch our stuff on.
Also - our eyes have become conditioned to perfect(ish) quality TV pictures. So old stuff really shows up defects, grain.
Though, I'd pay to see a 16mm print of a Sweeney episode shown on a large screen via a projector.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2020 20:04:53 GMT
I’ve come to the conclusion after many years of watching the Sweeney and after changing my mind previously on a few occasions lol- what is my favourite episode! And I’ve now decided to stick firmly, with Ringer! For various reasons one being due to Ian Hendry’s part in the episode, but what really bugs is the picture quality of this episode. I know it’s probably been mentioned before, but I really can’t understand, from a novices point of view, why, with all this techno we have today, they simply can’t make the picture qual as good as the other 52 episodes!
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