User Reviews

A strange death in a bar leads March and Giron to a silent order of monks.

Colonel March, a definite Francophile is once again helping The French Police with a case.

It's quite nice mystery, I liked the tone, the setting, and of course it's nice to see Colonel March placed in a little bit of danger. It is somewhat of a paint by numbers murder mystery, it's quite slow moving, and a little frustrating that one of the main suspects is from a silent order.

A really lovely cast here including Zena Matthews and Anton Diffring. Really nice to see Pohlmann back as Inspector Goron.

Nice, if a bit slow. 6/10.

We have the mainstays of British film production Martin Benson, Marne Maitland, Anton Diffring, Zena Marshall with blonde hair and Eric Pohlmann. Half the movie studios in London must have shut down while this episode was being shot.

THE SILENT VOW is something of an insufferable episode of Colonel March, one that again sees him taking a holiday in Paris and spending his time boozing around in a cafe. When one of the customers just so happens to be murdered via poison, March and his French detective buddy Goron decide to investigate.

This story is a very dull and dated one without even any supernatural-tinged elements to recommend it. It's a straightforward murder case with various suspects and back stories to uncover, but none of it is very interesting. It's a pity, as this film has a better than average cast including a returning Eric Pohlmann, Marne Maitland, Martin Benson, and Anton Diffring.

Colonel March is back in Paris and enjoying the company of Inspector Goron of the Surete at a bar.

While having a glass of Carcazon which seems off to Goron. He discusses with the Colonel their differing methods of detection.

Goron prefers to use the heart. The Colonel uses his head and prefers logic.

When a customer called Phillipe in the bar dies. It turns out that he was poisoned and he was also a monk as well a connoisseur of Carcazon.

The culprit might be Francois who was with Phillipe. It turns out that Francois was also a monk who came to Paris and fell in love.

Now Francois has returned to his remote monastery and taken a vow of silence. A monastery that makes Carcazon.

Goron meanwhile suspects the singer in the bar, the one who seemed close to Francois. Could it be a crime of passion?

An entertaining but a daft mystery. It made little sense, anyone could be a suspect and anything could be the motive. There is humour from Colonel March along the way.

Episode 23, "The Silent Vow" brings back Eric Pohlmann, making his third appearance as Inspector Goron of the Surete, who is enjoying an evening of Carcazon (neither bourbon nor liquor) at a Paris cafe with Colonel March, when a customer at a nearby table, Phillipe (Eugene Deckers), dies from drinking poisoned wine. Gaston the waiter (Marne Maitland) falls under suspicion because he was a former chemist, and the singer, Madeleine (Zena Marshall), girlfriend of cafe manager Jacques Dupont (Martin Benson), seems uncooperative when questioned by Goron. She was very close to Francois (Anton Diffring), like Phillipe a recent arrival from the monastery that fashions Carcazon, returning there to take a vow of silence for his late friend. Colonel March is allowed to demonstrate his English police methods to an unconvinced Goron, and succeeds in trapping the guilty party at the last moment. A real disappointment considering the high powered cast of familiar faces, such as Marne Maitland, previously seen in "The Headless Hat," Martin Benson, of Hammer's 1962 "Captain Clegg" and the 1976 blockbuster "The Omen," and exotic beauty Zena Marshall, who became the very first villainess to bed James Bond in 1962's "Dr. No" (Ewan Roberts as Inspector Ames does not appear). Saddest of all is the waste of Germanic villain Anton Diffring, who gets only a handful of lines before being rendered speechless due to 'the silent vow,' leaving no impression at all (fortunately, he would return in the very next episode, "The Silver Curtain," along with Eric Pohlmann's Goron).