Talking Pictures TV are showing the surviving black and white episodes, and we're now up to series 2 in 1969. Michael Goodliffe has replaced Ronald Radd as Hunter, but the rest of the main cast are as before.
Callan and Lonely break into a posh house and take obviously valuable items. However the burglary is simply a ruse to allow Callan to turn up as the insurance assessor in order to interview the lady of the house Mrs Rule. She is a Pole formerly married to scientist Brezhevski. She thinks he is dead, but he is in fact developing a rocket fuel to power a delivery vehicle for a new Russian 100 megaton warhead. The Brits want him and they are aware that he has been trying to contact his wife since she was released from Dachau. Callan's job is to try to encourage/coerce Mrs Rule to contact her husband. Displaying a surprising callousness, he reminds her she is committing bigamy and that a trial would probably give the already stressed woman a nervous breakdown. He forces her to copy a letter and, when her present husband remonstrates with him, Callan punches him in the stomach. Unfortunately the KGB get wind if the operation and later hold Dr and Mrs Rule hostage. They are rescued by Callan who has no hesitation in shooting dead one of the captors, leaving him sprawled across a table. The letter has done the the trick and Callan drags Mrs Rule to a remote airfield in order to identify Brezhevski. Things don't work out of course, and as he credits roll Callan suddenly shows a little compassion in trying to comfort the sobbing woman.
The print quality of this episode is noticeably better than in series one and, as ever, the black and white photography adds a required grittiness to the story. There was also a welcome appearance by 60s regular eastern european Vladek Sheybal as Dicer an embittered ex-pat Pole . His sharp features never fail to add an air of menace to his characters. These episodes seem a little quaint nowadays, with Russian agents obvious in leather coats and with thick accents but they are, nonetheless, a refreshing counterpoint to the
contemporary antics of Bond and The Man From Uncle.
