Saturday 28 June 2014

Unknown Drama #8



Here is a scene from another unknown TV drama from the 1980s.  In this case neither the actress nor the programme are known.

In the 10-second clip, there is no dialogue or music.  We just hear the sound of echoing footsteps as she quickly gets out of bed and rushes down some stairs.

There are no clues with this one to make much headway so any pointers to her identity or what the programme was called would be most welcome.

Saturday 21 June 2014

Drama Channel Heads Up #3


Here's another tip for for a drama coming up this week (and next) on the Drama channel.

The Murder Room
(The second of two Adam Dalgliesh mysteries starring Martin Shaw)
Originally shown on BBC1 in 2005.
It is a two-part story starting on Wednesday 25th June 2014 at 9:00pm on the Drama Channel.

Part 2 will presumably be on the following week on Wednesday 2nd July.

It featured topless scenes for Ty Glaser (in part 1) and Janie Dee (in part 2).


Ty Glaser

Janie Dee

Saturday 14 June 2014

Catherine Zeta Jones Rarity


This post is about an early obscure Catherine Zeta Jones topless scene whose origins have up to know proved oddly hard to substantiate.

It's one I've known about for quite a while but had never previously been able to verify the scant information known about it.  Its existence became known to me in the early 2000s via an old collage I saw which stated it came from something called "Resurgence".  There was also a mute 17-second clip showing the same scene.  Since then I've seen nothing else about it at all.

In the (silent) clip a young looking Catherine Zeta Jones is seen topless in a tennis clubhouse as a man opens up the door to the shower rooms just as she is coming out and she unabashedly flirts with him as she heads off to another room.  She looks similar in age to her "Darling Buds of May" days (1991-1993) and so it seemed likely it would be from the early 1990s sometime.

Back when I first came across it and was trying to find out further details, there was nothing on her IMDB entry to indicate she had ever been in anything with the name "Resurgence" - so it was a bit of mystery.

I initially put it on the site's Actress Database area as a query and had a response from an emailer who remembered seeing it and supplied the information that it was from a series called "Love At First Sight" with "Resurgence" being the episode title.  This was useful but actually got me no further in confirming anything because there was no trace of that on her credits either.  Nor any indication of there ever having been a series with that title at all.

I used that information on the site but it always nagged me that it was such an unconfirmable mystery series that seemed to have eluded all the reference sources I had ever looked at.  I've occasionally revisited it over the years when new reference sources turn up but still always turning up a blank.

But recently I revisited it again and discovered a new retrospective item had been added to Catherine Zeta Jones' IMDB credits that refers to "Resurgence".  And furthermore it helps explain why I've never been able to find any reference to a British series with that name.  Because it's actually a French series called "Coup de foudre"

This French anthology series had started in 1988 and she appeared in a 1992 episode entitled "Résurgence" broadcast in France on 28th August 1992.  Coup de foudre means "Thunderbolt".

Episode Cast for Coup de foudre: Résurgence
Dora Doll / Serge Dupire / Jessica Forde / Roland Giraud / Dominic Gould / Catherine Zeta-Jones

There is no plot summary given for it.

Some relevant series facts from IMDB:-
  • Each episode was 26 minutes in length;
  • It was an international co-production involving: France, Italy, UK, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland;
  • The production companies involved were: Antenne-2, Canal+, Harlech Television (HTV), Reteitalia.

HTV was the ITV region which served both Wales and the West of England (as two separate channels).  This is promising for it having been shown in the UK, which clearly it must have been given the existence of the clip and collage and my contributor's recollection. 

A search of a newspaper's TV listings pages from the time reveals that it was indeed shown.  But seemingly it was only shown in the HTV West region and it appears not to have been picked up for network broadcasting nationwide (not even in HTV Wales).  ITV London was showing a current affairs programme called "The London Programme" at the same time.  But that all helps with piecing together corroborating evidence since it was HTV who co-produced it.

It was shown at 11:10pm on HTV West on Friday, March 19th 1993, which was about 7 months after the French air date.  This listing shows it was given a time slot of 30 minutes which matches the stated length of the episodes.


There is no mention on IMDB of the series having been given an alternate English title of "Love At First Sight" but that now seems to be supportable with enough connecting information to make it seem likely that the same series is being referred to. 

One final check was to see if any of the male cast members listed for that episode matched the man seen in the clip and thankfully this also checks out:-  he closely resembles Roland Giraud.



So there seems to be little doubt that the clip's source has now been properly validated as being from Coup de foudre aka Love At First Sight.

Catherine Zeta Jones in Coup de foudre/Love At First Sight: Resurgence



Tuesday 10 June 2014

The Houseman's Tale (BBC/1987)


The Houseman's Tale was a 1980s BBC drama tinged with notoriety because the original version of it was "banned" by BBC bosses and had to be re-edited for transmission.

The story centres around Dr David Campbell, a young medical intern gaining hands-on experience working in a busy teaching hospital (such a person is termed a "Houseman").  It starred Colin Forsythe as David Campbell.

The Houseman's Tale was originally made by BBC Scotland in 1985 as a four-part drama with each episode lasting 50 minutes.  However it was considered too controversial to be shown in its original form and it was edited down into a two-part drama for eventual transmission.  This was finally broadcast on 21st and 28th March 1987.  The original episodes 1 and 2 were merged into a single first episode lasting 75 minutes (losing approximately 25 minutes of material) and episodes 3 and 4 were amalgamated to become the new part two lasting 80 minutes (losing 20 minutes of material).

The programme has never been commercially released and only a few retained collectors' clips from the broadcast version have emerged showing Julie Graham in two topless scenes.

Two full episodes were posted on YouTube in 2011 (in multiple parts) and interestingly it turns out to be the unbroadcast version rather than the transmitted version.  The YouTube posting includes the whole of episode 1 and 2 and about the first 10 minutes of episode 3.  For some reason the rest does not seem to have been posted. 

Here is a YouTube collection link which contains most of the parts although the last few are separately posted and not on this link, but can be searched for separately.



Watching it now it is hard to see what was so controversial about it.  In many ways it actually seems quite a modern drama, so perhaps its storytelling style was too ahead of its time?  It shows the overworked Dr Campbell's daily routine treating ward patients and socialising with other junior doctors and nurses.  From watching just episodes 1 and 2, there isn't too much of an actual story plot that drives it, and is mainly just slice-of-life stuff - the only recurring thread being a mystery illness which the doctors seem unable to properly diagnose.

Nudity
It was already known that Julie Graham had some nudity in the broadcast version, but now it can be seen that these scenes were different in the untransmitted version.  And additionally there are a couple of scenes featuring other actresses that quite possibly didn't make it into the broadcast version at all.

Julie Graham
In the unbroadcast original version of episode 1, Julie Graham, who is playing Dr Campbell's girlfriend Nurse Joan Masson, is seen fully frontal as she is getting dressed for work while she chats to Campbell who is still in bed.

However in the transmitted version (as seen via collectors' retained clips) she is just seen topless in the scene.  This was achieved in a somewhat sneaky way by placing a bannered caption across the picture telling us her character name which also serves to hide her lower parts.  This captioning device was already being used by the programme to display each characters' name on screen when they first appear, so the editors simply took advantage of this and moved her caption to serve a dual purpose.

This shows how the broadcast version differs from the original

Later in the same episode Julie Graham had a further topless scene in bed when she is complaining of stomach pains and Campbell examines her.  This scene appeared in the broadcast version but in a shortened form and the scene ended before the part where Campbell pulls the sheets further down to examine her abdomen.


 
Julie Graham's two scenes



Other Actresses
The unbroadcast version contains nudity that has never previously been seen in vintage collectors' clips or screenshots and so it's a fair bet that they were edited out entirely.

In the original episode 2, Juliet Cadzow has a topless bed scene with Dr Campbell.  It occurs after a party when Campbell takes her back to his room to console her for her boyfriend going off with another woman at the party.  It seems possible that the entire (quite long) party scene was dropped because the original end credits show the name of the actor playing the party's DJ (Alex Mathieson).  This actor's name does not appear on any of the official credits for the broadcast version either on IMDB or Kaleidoscope Guide perhaps suggesting that the party scene was not used. 

Juliet Cadzow

And in episode 3 (in the first 10 minutes thereof that appears on YouTube).  Mary Ann Reid is seen topless in a hospital bed scene where her breasts are being examined by a consultant and his staff (including Campbell) prior to having a removal operation.  This scene is especially cringe worthy for the insensitive way the senior consultant treats her and you can see why it might have decided not to use it in the edited version, if that was indeed the case.  Mary Ann Reid still appears in the official episode credits so she wasn't edited out entirely.  Because the posted material ends soon after that scene I don't know how her storyline progressed.

Mary Ann Reid

Even in its edited form it clearly wasn't considered something that many viewers would want to watch because it was tucked away in a very late Saturday night slot (10:30pm).  Perhaps so as to "offend" as few people as possible!  But no doubt if it was repeated today, in either form, it would be reassessed as groundbreaking.


Tuesday 3 June 2014

Drama Channel Heads Up #2


Here's a new tip for something tonight on the Drama Channel.

Tuesday 3rd June 2014
9:00pm - Silent Witness
Episode: "Schism"
Originally Shown: 2006

(Sorry for the lack of notice but a phone line outage prevented me from posting this sooner)

As previously mentioned in the post Some Uncredited Roles To Be Identified #2, this episode features two uncredited young women in a morgue scene in which they are heavily featured.  They both have character names given to them but neither have speaking roles.

If anyone can identify either of them please let me know.


"Lisa Finch"

"Jackie Cooper"



Worthy Site Footnotes #6

Here are a couple more quick site footnotes. 


These are both from the BBC1 series Merlin.

Michelle Ryan from series 1


 
Janet Montgomery from series 5