BIRDS IN A SUITCASE Part 01 (1967-1968)

 

I've been trying to watch the whole series of "Man In A Suitcase," and every one of them has an interesting female character in it, so why not do a segment on this bevy of British Birds? Welcome to a Wonderful Wednesday down in The Dungeon!

 

The first episode of "Man In A Suitcase" called "Brainwash" featured Suzan (Die Monster Die) Farmer as Judy Davies. Suzan passed away in 2017 at the age of 75.

 

The second episode was titled "The Sitting Pigeon" and had Lois (Captain Kronos:Vampire Hunter) Daine in it as Valerie Wilmot. Lois is still alive and well today.

 

Here's a shot of Lois from the BBC TV series "Play For Today" and an episode called "The Long Distance Piano Player" in 1970.

 

 

The third episode was called "Day Of Execution" and featured Rosemary Nicols as Moira, a love interest of McGill.

 

Rosemary had the ongoing role of Annabelle Hurst in the fantastic TV series "Department S." Here she is in the first episode with a blonde wig as a disguise. Rosemary is also still around today.
 

The fourth episode was titled "Variation On A Million Bucks: Part 1"

McGill's Romantic partner in this one is Yôko Tani as Taiko. Although Yôko is Japanese, she was born, and passed away in Paris, France. She's the only one so far here not British.

 

Episode five is "Variation On A Million Bucks: Part 2," and Taiko stays on as McGill's girlfriend.

Of course we love Yôko Tani for her part in the classic "First Spaceship On Venus."

Gay (Journey To The Unknown) Hamilton was also in Part 2. Gay is still with us too.

 

Episode number six was actually the pilot episode of "Man In A Suitcase," but oddly inserted at the number six position, and featured Angela Browne as McGill's ex-girlfriend Anna Wilson.

Angela was also in a couple of episodes of "The Avengers" and was the leading lady in this episode of "Danger Man" titled "The Girl In Pink Pajamas." Angela passed away in 2001 at the age of 63.
 

Episode number seven was titled "Sweet Sue," and had Judy (Berzerk) Geeson in the role of Sue herself.

Judy is probably the most recognizable face here so far, and she just celebrated her 73rd birthday a couple of weeks ago on September 10th, and is still working today.
 

Jacqueline (The Reptile) Pearce also had a small role in this episode. Jacqueline left the planet in 2018 at the age of 74.
 

Episode number eight was called "Assay In Evil" and has Wendy Hall as the wife of one of McGill's Clients.

Wendy was also a regular on eleven episodes of "Doomwatch." Wendy is also still alive.

Episode nine titled "The Girl Who Never Was" featured Annette Carell as an unscrupulous art dealer. Annette was also in "The Vulture," and believe it or not, a TV show called "The Man Who Never Was."

Annette took her own life at the age of 41 in 1967.

Priscilla (The Wednesday Thriller) Morgan had the role of Mavis Fletcher. Priscilla is still very much alive.

The tenth episode was titled "All That Glitters," and featured the beautiful Barbara Shelley!

British horror would be a vacuum without the likes of actresses like Barbara Shelley, who was in such classics as "Blood Of The Vampire," "Village Of The Damned," "The Gorgon," "Dracula: Prince of Darkness," as shown here with Sir Christopher Lee, and "Quatermass And The Pit."

Sadly, Barbara just passed away in January of this year at the age of 88.

TALES FROM THE CRYPT / "Undertaking Palor" - 1991

Here's a creepy little tale from the Crypt starring John Glover, Graham Jarvis, Aron Eisenberg, Scott Fults, Jason Marsden and Ke Huy Quan.

The story's about four friends that find out the local undertaker and a local pharmacist are working together to murder rich people and profit from their funerals!

Aaron, Norm and Jess just got out of the theater after watching the show and are walking through some back alleys...

A dark figure persues them and they're freaking out until he reveals himself as their other pal, Josh. He's the filmmaker in the group. He really had them going.

So, the boys thought it was a pretty good trick, but if you really want to be a filmmaker, they need to go to the undertaker's lab and shake hands with a corpse! Now, that would be epic. So, they sneak in and check the place out while the undertaker is out. One of the boys pulls back the sheet and discover the school librarian (with a look of horror on her face) on the table!

And guess who comes back? It gets weird real fast as the boys, hiding, catch a glimpse of the undertaker doing insane things to the body. He then removes the sheet, makes a cut down her stomach and uses a commercial vacuum to suck out her innards...

The boys are sickened by the unbelievable methods being used on the librarian.

And while working, he's listening to a horrible operatic song with a woman singing along, I really wanted it to stop. He also has pizza and Pepsi to enjoy as he does his thing.

The boys get away after the undertaker gets a visit from his partner in crime, the pharmacist Grundy. They also learn that the two plan on committing another crime that night by poisoning a rich patient with a prescription. That night, Josh's father dies and the boys decide to play some games themselves, by getting video evidence back at the lab...

Jess works for Grundy and is asked to take a prescription to the mortuary for the undertaker.

But Jess drops the bottle and the undertaker ends up chasing him down the street.

Aaron and Norm run into the lab and find some invoices showing that the undertaker was cheating his partner, Grundy. They take them to Grundy.

In the meantime, we see the merry undertaker stuffing Josh's dad with filler after removing his innards with the vac.

Grundy shows up and threatens the undertaker who grabs a pole and whips around, knocking Grundy out. Grundy is then strapped to a table...

The undertaker pours some fluid down his throat and Grundy dies a gruesome death, but, one of the boys is video taping him in the midst of his crimes!

Wait, another boy?.. And another? Yes, all four friends are there to tape the incident and mess with the undertaker.

One boy scoops up the undertaker with the librarian behind him, then Norm turns on the big vacuum machine and jabs it into the psycho's gut! Let the sucking begin!!

Pretty cool ending!! John Glover was great as the undertaker.

MAN IN A SUITCASE - "Brainwash" (1967)

 This week's Saturday Night Special is the first episode of the 1967 British TV show called "Man In A Suitcase," or is it? 

Information about this show is just as confusing as the show itself. After writing this whole thing I found out that there was a pilot episode called "Man From The Dead," that explains the roots of this man's problems, but according to the IMDB, "Man From The Dead" is episode number six. This show streams in pretty nice quality for free on IMDB TV, and on that stream, it says "Man From The Dead" is episode number fourteen, so your guess is as good as mine. Just watch it, and figure it out for yourself!

Although "Man In A Suitcase" is a British show, the star Richard Bradford was from the United States.

This first episode was titled "Brainwash," and that's pretty much exactly what you can expect!

The co-star is this suitcase.

Richard Bradford is McGill. As far as I know, we never find out what the rest of his name is.

The basic premise of the series is very similar to a show I've been watching on Prime called "Burn Notice" that was made in 2007. It's the story of a spy/intelligence officer who is wrongly forced out of service, is trying to figure out why, and now works privately delving into all kinds of people's problems.

This first episode they really give you hardly any background information. McGill thought he was meeting somebody and gets snatched up by some thugs from some obscure African nation, and they want to make him into the fall guy, and are willing to torture him to get him to do what they want, but he's not the cooperating type.

McGill's a pretty bright cat, and he's able to easily figure out there's a two-way mirror in the room they've dumped him in!

It's time for the treatments to start!

This show is nothing like say "The Avengers." It is mean, tough, and harsh, and there's no comedy at all, or anything I would consider camp, at least not in this episode.

These guys are not messing around, they put McGill in a small room and start bombarding him with loud sounds, and video propaganda!

It just gets worse....................

...............................And worse.............................

 

..........................And worse!!!!!

And if that's not bad enough, they give him cigarettes, but no way to light them, now that's just mean!

This diabolical bastard is not the Boss, but he is the main guy in charge of all the mayhem!

His name is John, and he's played by Colin Blakely. The same year Colin was also in an episode of "The Avengers," and three years later, he'd be playing Dr. Watson.

The woman playing the innocent victim who knows nothing, and brings McGill his food, is really not that innocent at all, and is the daughter of The Boss. McGill doesn't even know that, and he still tries to choke some information out of her. He's had about enough by now! The woman was played by Suzan (Dracula: Prince of Darkness) Farmer.

This show is 52 minutes long, and I'd say about 20 minutes or possibly more of it is McGill alone or being tortured.

Great! Now the video is of the big Boss saying over and over that he's going to shoot McGill! 

Howard Marion-Crawford was Dr. Petrie in three Fu Manchu movies, and he also played Dr. Watson for a while on TV. Howard also appeared on "The Avengers" three times.

In 1980, The Police recorded the song "Man In A Suitcase," which to me is totally about this series.

More bizarre treatments, how much can one man endure? 

"Man In A Suitcase" is a fascinating show, but this first episode can be difficult to watch after a while!

McGill gets shot, but he finally is able to escape this madness!

 

We never knew where he was the whole time, and it seemed like it was on a desert island somewhere, but it turns out he was right in town the whole time.

 

In the end, we know just about as much as we did in the beginning about this character named McGill. Nice buildup. Any curious person would want to know where in the Hell this was going!
 Thanks again to my good friend Lord Litter in Berlin for making me more than keenly aware that I needed to watch "Man In A Suitcase." Now I've got to find the time to watch the other twenty-nine episodes, especially the pilot!