User Reviews

Someone has stabbed Lord Telford, his death is hanging over those close to him, the only course of action to protect the innocent, hypnotism.

Where on Earth did that ending come from, talk about straight out of left field. We were given no clues, and no information, that outcome had me well and truly flummoxed.

I spent most of this episode wondering how nice it would be for an investigator to not have to investigate the crime, but to watch it play out in real time, how much work would that concept actually save.

An Interesting concept, and I did appreciate the twist at the end, overall, pretty good. 6/10.

A rather straightforward murder case for Colonel March. This episode is a throwback to the classic 'old dark house' type films of the 1930s and beyond, in which a bunch of friends and relatives turn up at a spooky old mansion to listen to a lawyer reading the will of a deceased person. After a brutal murder takes place, March employs some unusual methods to crack the case.

COLONEL MARCH OF Scotland YARD was a TV series that flirted with the supernatural on more than one occasion but the only outre element of this episode is method March uses to solve the crime: he hypnotises a room full of people in order to gain a confession. It's unusual indeed, even if the denouement is resolutely ordinary; still, there are familiar faces like Patrick Barr and Alfred Burke hanging around the scenery, so it's not all bad.

Episode 16, "The Devil Sells His Soul" looks like one of the better ones, but for most of its length the sound is completely absent, until about 10 minutes from the end (even then, it's barely audible). The mystery surrounds the knife murder of Lord Telford, with the guilty one foiled by a stitch in time orchestrated by Colonel March, who puts the entire cast under hypnosis, while he himself portrays the murder victim! Among the excellent cast are Patrick Barr and Alfred Burke, future villains on THE AVENGERS, as well as Patricia Laffan, best known for playing the title role in 1954's camp classic "Devil Girl from Mars." Arthur Crabtree, with 7 episodes the second most prolific director on the series (Bernard Knowles did 11), was no stranger to the horror/sci fi genres, with 1958's "Fiend Without a Face" and 1959's "Horrors of the Black Museum" two of his most notorious shockers.

When Lord Telford is found dead. Colonel March discovers that many people had a motive to kill him.

Lord Telford was a dislikeable man. The people only stayed in the mansion with him out of fear or they were coerced.

Colonel March uses mass hypnotism on five people with their agreement. He will play Telford and the others will act around him as if he was still alive.

Colonel March hopes that the real murderer would slip up.

An intriguing concept but it is not pulled off well. Anyone could be the murderer, there is a suspect who is caught but Colonel March thinks someone else is the actual killer.

There was a sense of randomness about the reveal.