Don't you just love Talking Pictures!? Just finished showing Public Eye and they resurrect another favourite, low key sixties operator - David Callan. And; they start with the very first episode of the tv series. Wonderful! Took me straight back to my teens and sitting in front of a 24 inch black and white tv set.
More Harry Palmer than James Bond, Callan is basically an assassin. He originally worked for "The Section" which seems to be a dirty jobs department for the Security Services. However, due to his rather maverick attitude towards authority Callan has effectively been sacked. But, his superior, Hunter, wants to keep him close by for awkward missions in order that, should anything go wrong, there is no connection with the British Government.
This episode opens with Callan being summoned by Hunter for a surveillance job on a suspected former nazi who the Israelis want to bring to trial. Callan protests he no longer works for Hunter, but Hunter shows him a red file with Callan's own name on it. This is The Section's coding system for dangerous subjects who will be eliminated. In consequence Callan agrees to play ball; but at the close of the interview he picks up a gun and tells Hunter that although he may have the authority to eliminate him, he will not be there to see it since Callan will kill Hunter first. Callan then fires six shots into the head of a paper target in an adjacent indoor firing range.
Taking up a position as book keeper with the subject Stavros, Callan is immediately distrusted by the secretary Jeanne Roche. During a lunchbreak Callan searches Stavros' private quarters. This sequence is entertaining since the audience hears Callan's thoughts, often rendered in quaint terms but which serve to tell us what is going on. Later we are introduced to Callan's unofficial sidekick Lonely; a petty crook and black marketeer whom Callan uses to obtain required items, in this instance a gun. Lonely also advises on how Stavros' safe can be accessed. Callan searches the private room again, this time finding an SS uniform, a pistol, a photo album bound with human skin and a bag of gold teeth! All of which prove that Stavros is actually Obersturmbahnfuehrer Strauss responsible for concentration camp atrocities. Callan is disturbed by Jeanne and is surprised to find that, not only is she aware of Stavros' true identity, she betrayed him to the British and is the reason that Callan is there! An arrest is planned but Jeanne tells Stavros everything and he confronts Callan dressed in his SS uniform and armed with a pistol. He wants to escape but cannot bring himself to shoot Callan. He pleads that he is a reformed character, that Strauss is dead. Callan seems to have no pity, telling Strauss that the Israelis are coming for him. Strauss resigns himself to his fate but then Callan suggests that he changes his jacket, handing one to Strauss which, they both know, has a cyanide capsule hidden in the lapel. The inevitable happens and everyone is furious with Callan, but he doesn't care. He's not just a cold-blooded killer.
Great being able to see Ted Woodward and Russell Hunter in their familiar roles again. Only gripe was the poor quality of the recording, the reason for which is explained by another reviewer. On the other hand the downbeat theme music was just welcomed into my ears like an old pal.
4 Reviews
Superior Spy Stuff
kris-gray1 June 2019
I was glued to this back in the day as a teenager, such world of difference to James Bond and more realistic. Closer in feel the 'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold' than 'Dr No' Edward Woodward was perfect in the roll as was Anthony Valentine as the obnoxious Toby Meres, he did nasty so well, see Secret Army as well.
Full marks to Talking Pictures who recently ran all the color episodes but only a few from the B&W years. They told me they could only get the rights to some of them. However all remaining episodes are available on DVD from Network.
The picture quality of this episode as other reviewers have stated is not good being a tele recording so one star off for that otherwise a classic.
Full marks to Talking Pictures who recently ran all the color episodes but only a few from the B&W years. They told me they could only get the rights to some of them. However all remaining episodes are available on DVD from Network.
The picture quality of this episode as other reviewers have stated is not good being a tele recording so one star off for that otherwise a classic.
The Good Ones Are All Dead
Prismark1018 September 2020
Callan looks at the world of spies that is more inspired by Len Deighton and John Le Carre.
Edward Woodward plays Callan who realises that there is no going out from the spy business. His superiors regard him as a trained and effective killer and need him for a particular task. No is not an answer they will accept.
The good news is that no killing is involved in this assignment. Callan needs to act as a bookkeeper to a Greek Cypriot businessman called Stavros and deliver him to the Israeli secret service alive.
Stavros is a former Nazi officer, a wanted war criminal but Callan wants to make sure that he is what his bosses claim.
Woodward knocks it out of the park as Callan. A lower class hardman, his parents were killed by a V2 rocket. He is a man who went to the school of hard knocks. In contrast with his colleague Meres, who dislikes Callan but respects his abilities.
The first episode shows spycraft being dirty, seedy and unglamorous. Callan seems to have his own rules which is not always following his superiors orders. Somehow Stavros gets to Callan and and plants some seeds of doubt in his mind.
This is a downbeat series with characters such as Lonely, wonderfully portrayed by Russell Hunter who is smelly and shifty.
Edward Woodward plays Callan who realises that there is no going out from the spy business. His superiors regard him as a trained and effective killer and need him for a particular task. No is not an answer they will accept.
The good news is that no killing is involved in this assignment. Callan needs to act as a bookkeeper to a Greek Cypriot businessman called Stavros and deliver him to the Israeli secret service alive.
Stavros is a former Nazi officer, a wanted war criminal but Callan wants to make sure that he is what his bosses claim.
Woodward knocks it out of the park as Callan. A lower class hardman, his parents were killed by a V2 rocket. He is a man who went to the school of hard knocks. In contrast with his colleague Meres, who dislikes Callan but respects his abilities.
The first episode shows spycraft being dirty, seedy and unglamorous. Callan seems to have his own rules which is not always following his superiors orders. Somehow Stavros gets to Callan and and plants some seeds of doubt in his mind.
This is a downbeat series with characters such as Lonely, wonderfully portrayed by Russell Hunter who is smelly and shifty.
Callan and the Nazi
audiovideodisco-0889323 January 2017
The first episode of 'Callan' recaps the premise established in the superior pilot, 'A Magnum for Schneider' (an episode of 'Armchair Theatre' broadcast earlier in 1967), but with added Nazi power. Alongside Edward Woodward, Ronald Radd and Russell Hunter also return from the pilot as, respectively, Callan's spymaster Hunter and trusty but unwashed black-marketeer 'Lonely'.
The exposition of Callan's relationship with the Service is badly rushed here, but it is at least completely consistent with the ending of 'A Magnum for Schneider'. In Hunter's colour-coded files, where yellow means a target is being watched and red means they're a danger and should be killed, Callan's own records have been transferred from a yellow file to a red one. His relationship with Hunter continues as before - there is advantage to both in continuing to work together, but each would happily see the other dead. In the series Anthony Valentine replaces Peter Bowles as Hunter's new right-hand man, still keeping an eye on the unreliable Callan.
It's slightly harder to understand this time why Callan would instinctively show any compassion towards a Nazi war criminal, especially once his investigations have unearthed some fairly gruesome evidence of the truth. It's perhaps similarly more difficult to see why Hunter still feels confident to use him for another case after the events of the pilot episode - perhaps it would be safer just to have him killed. Nevertheless, the ending of this episode reinforces that of the pilot, that Callan has a need to understand his target, such that to the end he is evaluating whether or not the target has a right to live or die.
Viewing this episode of 'Callan' isn't easy. Like all the surviving episodes, it has been released on DVD by Network in the UK, but it is one of the episodes which has really only just survived at all. Recorded off-air by the quaint back-up method of pointing a video camera at a TV monitor screen, it survives in a motley 405-line version (compare scenes in Hunter's office or Callan's flat with similar scenes in the superior 625-line quality of the pilot). As a direct consequence of this, the episode suffers from terrible image ghosting throughout - you can still see the countdown screen several seconds after the episode has in fact begun to play, and the shadow of one actor's head and shoulders across a shot of another. However, you get used to it after the first few minutes, and a strong audio rack compensates for some very fuzzy shots and flurries of videotape lines across the screen.
This series episode clearly didn't have the same budget as the pilot, and lighting and sound issues arise throughout. There are a number of particularly annoying studio bangs, alongside some rather jerky camera-work towards the denouement of the episode, which make one particularly aware of the limitations of the "as live" studio recording methods of 1967. Presumably there just wasn't time to reshoot this final sequence, nor were there resources to drop in short re-record sequences in post-production editing.
All in all, it's a solid first episode, but I'd have to recommend the pilot 'A Magnum for Schneider' over this, and would even suggest that having watched that you might dispense with this altogether and move on to other episodes which have something new to offer.
The exposition of Callan's relationship with the Service is badly rushed here, but it is at least completely consistent with the ending of 'A Magnum for Schneider'. In Hunter's colour-coded files, where yellow means a target is being watched and red means they're a danger and should be killed, Callan's own records have been transferred from a yellow file to a red one. His relationship with Hunter continues as before - there is advantage to both in continuing to work together, but each would happily see the other dead. In the series Anthony Valentine replaces Peter Bowles as Hunter's new right-hand man, still keeping an eye on the unreliable Callan.
It's slightly harder to understand this time why Callan would instinctively show any compassion towards a Nazi war criminal, especially once his investigations have unearthed some fairly gruesome evidence of the truth. It's perhaps similarly more difficult to see why Hunter still feels confident to use him for another case after the events of the pilot episode - perhaps it would be safer just to have him killed. Nevertheless, the ending of this episode reinforces that of the pilot, that Callan has a need to understand his target, such that to the end he is evaluating whether or not the target has a right to live or die.
Viewing this episode of 'Callan' isn't easy. Like all the surviving episodes, it has been released on DVD by Network in the UK, but it is one of the episodes which has really only just survived at all. Recorded off-air by the quaint back-up method of pointing a video camera at a TV monitor screen, it survives in a motley 405-line version (compare scenes in Hunter's office or Callan's flat with similar scenes in the superior 625-line quality of the pilot). As a direct consequence of this, the episode suffers from terrible image ghosting throughout - you can still see the countdown screen several seconds after the episode has in fact begun to play, and the shadow of one actor's head and shoulders across a shot of another. However, you get used to it after the first few minutes, and a strong audio rack compensates for some very fuzzy shots and flurries of videotape lines across the screen.
This series episode clearly didn't have the same budget as the pilot, and lighting and sound issues arise throughout. There are a number of particularly annoying studio bangs, alongside some rather jerky camera-work towards the denouement of the episode, which make one particularly aware of the limitations of the "as live" studio recording methods of 1967. Presumably there just wasn't time to reshoot this final sequence, nor were there resources to drop in short re-record sequences in post-production editing.
All in all, it's a solid first episode, but I'd have to recommend the pilot 'A Magnum for Schneider' over this, and would even suggest that having watched that you might dispense with this altogether and move on to other episodes which have something new to offer.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
