COLONEL MARCH OF SCOTLAND YARD--"At Night All Cats are Grey"--colorized

11 months ago
105

Colonel March of Scotland Yard is a British television series consisting of a single season of 26 episodes first broadcast in the United States from December 1954 to Spring of 1955. The series premiered on British television on 24 September 1955 on the newly opened ITV London station for the weekends Associated Television. It is based on author John Dickson Carr's (aka Carter Dickson) fictional detective Colonel March from his book The Department of Queer Complaints (1940).[1] Carr was a mystery author who specialised in locked-room whodunnits and other 'impossible' crimes: murder mysteries that seemed to defy possibility.[2] The stories of the television series followed in the same vein with March solving cases that baffle Scotland Yard and the British police. The department itself is sometimes referred to as "D3". Boris Karloff starred as Colonel March.
Episode 4, "At Night All Cats Are Gray," is perhaps the most famous, due to the welcome and unexpected presence of Sir Christopher Lee, a future Monster in 1957's "The Curse of Frankenstein," playing opposite the screen's original 1931 Monster, Boris Karloff. Colonel March is dining in Piccadilly Circus with Inspector Ames (Ewan Roberts) when a mysterious woman (Isabel George) interrupts, hoping the Colonel will pretend to be her lover because she is being followed by a strange man and fears for her life. He instantly recognizes the girl as a French model named Fleur, working in London for the Jean-Pierre Couturier. Later that night, March is attacked by the stranger (Peter Dyneley), who demands certain clothing designs that Fleur supposedly slipped the Colonel. In the morning, Fleur is found lying dead on the floor of her apartment, wearing a different pair of shoes than she had earlier, as the investigation continues with Monsieur Jean-Pierre (Lee) and his wife (Frances Rowe) prime suspects. The Colonel solves this case by revealing a color-blind murderer, and how all cats are gray at night. Completed by December 1953, the 31 year old Christopher Lee towers over the other actors, affecting a French accent, and receiving top billing among the guest cast of five players. He would go on to co-star with Karloff, his actual London neighbor from 1964 to 1968, in 1958's "Corridors of Blood" and 1968's "The Crimson Cult."

Loading comments...