INVISIBLE ASSET

by Andrew Pixley
with thanks to Dave Rogers

"My name is Peter Brady. For some time now, I've been engaged in highly secret experiments designed to bring about a great step forward in man's conquest of space and matter. Here in my lab, working night and day, I've been prying into the mysteries of the future. Only a few hours ago, I felt that there would be secrets that would never be known to us here on Earth. And then suddenly, in the midst of routine experiments, a strange and unpredicted event took place. Whether a mistake or the natural conclusion of the experiment I cannot say. I can say that what happened is one of the most fantastic experiences in our modern day."

 

Viewers of Channel 4's THE ELEVENTH HOUR on 21st December 1987 were lucky enough to see, amongst the jumble of scratch editing from classic TV shows, an example of one of the rarer film telefantasy series produced by an ITC's associate. Peter Brady, the star of ITP's H.G. WELLS' INVISIBLE MAN was alive again, introducing Invisible Television including his own show "Peter Brady O.D.".

 

Peter Brady reveals to his niece Sally (Deborah Watling) that he is now invisible in the episode “Secret Experiment”

The brain behind this series was Ralph Smart, by 1957 a veteran in TV production with a long track record of success in film series for ITV. He had been the original writer, director and producer of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD in 1955 at the inception of the independent network. He remained as producer on the ITC/Sapphire Film Productions series for two years, also writing and directing various episodes mainly in its first season. From there he moved over to direct the first three episodes of Sapphire's new ITC venture THE ADVENTURES OF SIR LANCELOT in 1956. After this he became producer of almost half the episodes of THE BUCCANEERS, yet again for Sapphire at their Nettlefold Studios at Walton-On-Thames. Then the next year came ITC's THE ADVENTURES OF WILLIAM TELL made at the National Studios in Elstree, for which Smart was the producer on many episodes as well as the occasional writer and director. His next series at National would be for Official Films in association with Incorporated Television Programmes Ltd - an offshoot of ITC who would ultimately hold all the rights. The new film series of twenty-six episodes would be based on the character created by H.G. Wells in his classic novel "The Invisible Man".

The Star You Never See

With the Claude Raines film from 1933 having already presented a reasonably updated version of Wells' novel, plus a whole succession of immitators and sequels using the same photographic trickery, often to a humourous effect, Smart needed a new edge for his series. Used to producing shows set in mediaeval Sherwood Forest, around the castle of Camelot, on the high seas with Captain Dan Tempest and in far off fourteenth century Switzerland, the new series would be bang up to date, the first notable contemporary thriller film series.

 

The Invisible Man in the series would be a present day scientist, Dr Peter Brady, who would accidentally become invisible in the opening segment and spend the remaining twenty-five instalments using his unique powers to investigate crimes and go where no other man could go. The main character would either roam the screen swathed in bandages and dark glasses - á la Mr Raines - or alternatively merely indicate his presence by smoking a cigarette in mid-air or driving about in a seemingly empty car.

 

The show's gimmick, Smart decided, was that the actor, or actors, playing his star would never be billed giving the invisible man an almost real existence. Episode closing credits just read "The Invisible Man and ...". The billings in the "TVTimes" contained ad-lines like "featuring the invisible 'star'", "featuring the star you never see", "featuring the star who is never seen" and "featuring the strange invisible star".

 

Smart himself elected to co-write the first episode with Doreen Montgomery, an experienced writer who had first worked with Smart as writer or co-writer to Smart and others on twelve episodes of THE ADVENTURES OF WILLIAM TELL. The basic story came from Smart himself, who also directed.

 

The voice of the unseen Brady was selected as the rough and gravely tones of the Canadian actor Robert Beatty, who had found much work in the United Kingdom as a character actor. Lisa Daniely was cast as his sister Jane, and brought some welcome beauty to the show as well as giving a character to whom Brady could explain what was going on. Also, as the show would be an adventure suitable for children, Brady was to have a niece played by ten year old actress Deborah Watling, daughter of Jack Watling. She had previously appeared in an episode of THE ADVENTURES OF SIR LANCELOT called The Spider, co-written by Smart.

The Pilot

The original pilot opens with a different theme tune, softer and more melodious than the strident, booming one later adopted by the production team. The title sequence begins with a pan around the equipment of a dark lab, substances effervescing in glass tubes. The words "H.G. WELLS'" zoom up the the screen, then moving to the top of the picture as a figure, turning slowly and stiffly, is picked out in the gently throbbing light. In white lab coat, high buttoned shirt and its face in bandages, the top of its head is missing and the lab wall is visible through the eye holes. The words "INVISIBLE MAN" appear below its creator's name, and the title then dissolves. The Brady prop used for this version was a dummy with a rigidly built up hollow head of bandages.

 

Peter Brady is at work in his laboratory, his face not seen by the camera. A tannoy blares out a warning that number three reactor is leaking and emergency drill five is to be activated. As klaxons sound in the panic, a female laboratory assistant dashes past and looks into Brady's lab. Brady is lying there with no head, and she screams.

  

 

Later, Brady pulls up in his car with his head bandaged and glasses on his face, and makes a call from a phone box where he can see the lounge window of the house he is 'phoning. The 'phone is answered by little Sally, who recognises the voice of her Uncle Peter, and hands him on to his sister, Jane. Peter tells Jane to send her daughter to bed, and says he will be right over, although an accident at work has left him shrouded in bandages. He arrives to explain that he is invisible, having worked on his project for too long, and possibly absorbed powerful substances in his person. The full blast of the reactor leak did the trick. "It's quite simple. Take a jellyfish. Put it in water. You can't see it. Their refractive index is the same. All that's happened to me is that my refractive index has been lowered to that of air. So, I'm invisible. See?" Brady admits he doesn't know how to return to normal. Sally comes down, having heard her uncle's voice, and is astonished to find Peter bandaged up. Brady reminds her of an experiment he showed her when he made a guinea-pig disappear. Now he has tried it on himself. Deciding they must learn to live with the situation, Brady sheds his bandages one by one until he is headless. Sally can feel that he needs a shave.

 

Brady works furiously all night to try and find the answer to his predicament, annoyed by a call from the "Daily News" trying to talk to him. The house is surrounded by reporters. Sally points out that Brady has been the subject of newspaper headlines before she goes to school, dying to tell the other girls about her invisible uncle. The reporters ask Jane Wilson what her brother has done, and she replies "No comment". One reporter sweetly asks little Sally what her uncle had for breakfast, and receives the same response. Brady bemoans the fact that it feels as if he is in a zoo, and goes out to see the journalists. Pointing out that a picture of him is pointless, he gives a statement. "Okay, I'm invisible. I didn't intend to be. I don't like it. And furthermore I want to stop being invisible. Therefore I've got a lot of work to do and have no time for stunts. Good day!" The door slams shut.

 

Jane comes in later to find her brother, totally invisible, causing papers to float around the room. She is worried about Sally, who is an hour late back from school. A little girl called Lindy says that Sally was collected from school by a taxi, supposedly sent by Jane. "The police!" exclaims Brady, worried that the girl is being held by journalists as a publicity stunt. Soon a kindly police sergeant arrives to help, but a mysterious phone call to Jane suddenly makes her come up with the lamely weak explanation that she forgot Sally has gone to a friend's party. After bustling the sergeant out, she tells Peter that they must go and fetch Sally. A note has been left in their car to tell them where to go.

 

Brady reads the directions to Jane once in the car and soon they arrive at a deserted old house. "Here we are. Must be the empty house!" says the invisible hero. Inside, Jane meets a sinister Welshman and at first takes him for a journalist. The man is furious to find Brady is not present, or so he thinks until Brady speaks out, and tells Jane to wait in the car. The man is beaten up by the scientist he cannot see, and when he tries to make a break across a field is grabbed and dealt with by Brady. The welshman, Williams, finally agrees to take Brady to his boss.

 

Brady confronts the large villain, Crowther, who says he will hand Sally over for £50,000. The scientist can walk into a bank and steal this, using his powers. First he has to steal the keys from the manager and the head clerk. Only wearing his invisible coat, Brady is also catching cold as he rings the doorbell of the manager's flat, steps in past the wife as the couple prepare to go out, and then takes the key. Next, Brady gets the clerk's key and borrows a pair of trousers.

Crowther takes Brady, who is smoking a cigarette [the producers never missed a chance to throw in a gimmick], to the bank where Brady gets the money out before the police arrive, alerted by alarms at the local station. He locks the policemen in the strongroom.

 

Crowther and Brady arrive by car at a remote harbour where Sally is held in a boat, and handed over to her Uncle Peter. Crowther says a bus will pass in three hours to pick them up, and he and his two thugs, Guy and Joe, are now leaving. Whilst the crooks put the money in a get-away car, Brady and Sally make plans on the boat. They get into the get-away car and drive off, apparently with no driver. The villains give chase in Crowther's car. Brady sees some policemen and gets Sally to wave, but they fail to notice. Another driver almost crashes in amazement. Finally Sally and the invisible driver attract a police car. "Now we put on the squeeze," says Brady, swerving before the villains. The cars stop, and Brady goes to plant the money in Crowther's boot. The police question Sally who tells them to look in the other cars' boot, and the villains are arrested. "I still want to know who was driving this car," demands the officer. "My uncle of course," says Sally. "Oh yes," scoffs the policeman, "where is he then?" "Right here, he's invisible," is her reply. A sneeze comes from nowhere. "Bless you," says the niece. "Come along Sally," says Brady, and the little girl takes his invisible hand as the two walk off to new adventures.

If at First You Don’t Succeed

The episode was an embarrassment. Wires are clearly visible in all scenes where the invisible Brady has to lift anything. The 'headless' Brady has difficulty not walking into anything, door jams and furniture, and the effects on the whole are at best unconvincing, at worst disastrous. The padding around the actor's head looks dreadful. The direction from Smart lacks action. The plot is extremely juvenile. It seems that a major influence in its revamping must have been Larry White, who is credited with the rôle of "Suggested for TV" from the revised pilot on a number of episodes.

 

A reshoot was essential. A new script was prepared by Michael Connor and Michael Cramoy, retaining only the opening scenes of the original and presenting a tighter and more adult adventure, Sally's input now kept to a minimum. In the new scenes, a taller actor was engaged to play the bandaged Brady, Deborah Watling's haircut is now more curly as opposed to the short, straight cut in the pilot, and the special effects are generally far more competant.

Connor was an old-hand to these film series, having worked with Smart as far back as the second season of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, as well as THE ADVENTURES OF WILLIAM TELL, and the new episode he crafted with Michael Cramoy was to introduce new aspects to the show. Brady could now be used by British Intelligence at times on missions, or else would become a security risk. Instead of just leaving his research lab to go freelance - an unlikely situation to say the least - he would still associate himself from time to time with his old superior, Dr Hanning, played by Lloyd Lamble [e.g. The Locked Room]. Sir Charles Anderson, played by Ernest Clark, was introduced in the pilot and would return in Picnic With Death and Shadow on the Screen and the same actor played the part of MI.5 chief Colonel Ward in The Vanishing Evidence. Also, the name of Brady's sister was changed from Jane to Diane, or 'Dee' as Brady referred to her.

The director for the new pilot was Pennington Richards, an old hand at such shows. He had been producer on several episodes of THE BUCCANEERS as well as directing on this programme and episodes of Sidney Box's 1958 show IVANHOE. As it transpired, Richards would direct virtually all the early episodes of H.G. WELLS' INVISIBLE MAN.

 

In the new pilot Secret Experiment, the opening action has the unseen Brady making a guinea pig vanish into thin air with his assistant, Miss Howard, whom he sends to fetch Dr Hanning. A radiation leak occurs again, but Brady phones control to say that he has traced the leak and all is under control. Miss Howard returns and screams: Brady is invisible. The new theme tune underlines this, a ponderous and deeper melody than before.

 

Sir Charles arrives to see Dr Hanning, and Hanning explains about Peter Brady's work, spouting the same explanations as scripted for Brady to give to Jane in the original, although nuclear power now seems to be a key element in the process. Sir Charles is more interested in security and is glad to hear the invisible man is under lock and key. Sir Charles looks at Hanning's file on Brady: he is a top sportsman as well as scientist. He is also a bachelor, living with his widowed sister and her daughter. However, Brady has already escaped and makes his way home by car, calling his sister, Diane, from a 'phone box en route. He warns 'Dee' that when he turns up, he will be bandaged from an accident in the laboratory. Brady is concerned that somebody may be waiting for him ... and indeed when Hanning and Sir Charles learn of his escape from the hospital window, they set about constructing a stratagem to find an invisible man.

 

Brady arrives home, where Dee realises his arm is invisible, and the scientist explains that an accident with the conductors resulted in him taking a full blast. He admits he doesn't know how to get back, and must start work at once. Realising he is a secret now, he is reluctant to seek the help of his old colleagues, but knows just the man ...

 

Little Sally darts in on hearing her Uncle's voice. This time his explanation of his appearance is notably less technical: "You remember our old story about the king and the magic hat? You remember what happened when he put on his magic hat?" - "Nobody could see him." - "Right, well your Uncle Peter's invented a magic hat and no one can see him." The girl demands that he takes his bandages off as proof, and Brady does so - in a technically better display than the original pilot. Sally is sworn to secrecy and then casually departs for a friend's house - not realising the full gravity of her Uncle's plight. 

One Coat Covers All

Brady prepares to go out for a drive and explains to Diane that he is wearing his lab clothes, which because of their woollen composition have become invisible. Removing his overcoat he becomes totally invisible. Driving along, he tells his sister that Doctor John Crompton is the one man who can help, having also worked on the refraction problem for years. Brady goes in alone and surprises Crompton by suddenly raising a cigarette lighter obligingly when needed. He explains about the accident and pleads with Crompton to help him, outlining the lab's secret classification of him. Crompton sees Hanning's point of view: an invisible man could cause widespread alarm. Brady is desperate to become visible again, but Crompton begins to think: "You haven't yet had a chance to fully appreciate the position you're in have you Brady? To explore to the fullest all the interesting possibilities - or should I say opportunities that are open to you ... This morning Dr Brady, due to a fantastic accident, you inherited the Earth. I'll give it you in a word: power! So long as you remain invisible, no door can ever be closed to you. Neither the vaults of the Bank of England, nor the Prime Minister's private office. All you have to do is take, Dr Brady. Money. Power. It's all yours for the taking. Now do you understand?"

 

Brady is aghast, as he simply wants to return to being a normal citizen enjoying a normal life, something more precious than money and power. Crompton hastily agrees, claiming his speech was just a psychological test and Brady forgives him. Crompton gives Brady some notes he may find interesting, but by the time it has dawned on the invisible man that these are nothing to do with his problem, the distraction has allowed Crompton to strike him down. At once Crompton uses the phone to announce that Brady has visited him, and has been violent.

 

A security officer, Kemp, and Crompton get Brady's notes from his lab under lock and key to take to the chief, but when Kemp is distracted, Crompton switches the notes for blank paper. Meanwhile, Diane ventures into Crompton's house to find her brother recovering consciousness and the two depart in the car. They return to his laboratory, to find his vital notes gone. Suspecting Crompton of theft, Brady rings Hanning, who reveals that he has the notes on his desk. Brady visits him, and reveals Crompton's deception, storming out in fury to track the thief. He drives back to Crompton's after the notes, where the scientist fires wildly with a gun, trying to ward Brady off. Brady grabs the man, demanding the notes, and a fight ensues. Crompton flees the house with Brady in pursuit out into the countryside, until Brady corners him at a railway bridge where they battle it out until Kemp arrives to take charge of the situation.

 

"It was a very bad thing somebody did to Uncle Peter, locking him up like that," states little Sally as Brady, his notes retrieved, announces he is to set to work at once. And with an agreement from Sir Charles, the episode draws to a close.

Notably absent from the new version are the dulcet tones of Beatty, which at some times had been difficult to hear and at others painfully ludicrous in the dialogue he was forced to play out with his niece. The new voice artiste, unknown in identity for many years, provided a clearer tone, one full of heroism and slightly overplayed in emotion, akin the the BBC's radio heroes of the Forties and Fifties like Dick Barton, Paul Temple, Jet Morgan and Jeff Arnold. Beatty moved on to fame in 1958 as Inspector Mike Maguire of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the Towers of London/ZIV TV production DIAL 999.

 

Diane (Lisa Daniely) watches Brady make an important telephone call concerning Tania in “The Locked Room”

The ITC press book was most insistant that the first, second, fourth and fifth episodes were shown first by any television company, although the logic behind such an order has never been unravelled for as long as Secret Experiment is aired at the beginning, the remaining twenty-five episodes can be run in any order. As usual, such a directive was promptly ignored by the ITV stations and when the series was shown in the New York region of America. The suggested running order of The Locked Room, Crisis in the Desert and Picnic With Death was dropped in favour of Crisis in the Desert and Behind the Mask by both ITV and US stations. The third episode, for some reason strangely omitted from this sequence by ITC, was Strange Partners.

Apparent Succcess

With the series underway, more writers and then directors were draughted in. Lindsay Galloway had written six episodes of THE ADVENTURES OF WILLIAM TELL, including two from stories by Smart. Leslie Arliss had been co-writer, director and producer on this series too, as well as directing several episodes of THE BUCCANEERS and feature films. Philip Levene, best known for his radio serial AMBROSE about a tennis-player spy submitted some story ideas. Ian Stuart Black had written an episode of THE ADVENTURES OF WILLIAM TELL and often prepared final scripts from other writer's ideas. Michael Pertwee, son of the playwright Roland Pertwee and brother of Jon and Bill contributed to the series, as did a young writer called Brian Clemens, who was under contract to ABC at the time and so submitted his ideas under the nom-de-plume of Tony O'Grady, a name he would reuse on both ABC's THE PROTECTORS and ITC's THE BARON for similar reasons.

 

The second director brought into the show was Peter Maxwell, a prolific director on episodes of all Smart's previous shows and who was also doing Sapphire's SWORD OF FREEDOM at the time. The third, Quentin Lawrence, was an established figure as a television director at ATV and on feature films as well as episodes of THE ADVENTURES OF WILLIAM TELL.

 

The episodes vary tremendously in style and content. Some have Brady trying to seek help in regaining his natural state. On other occasions he is trapped or tricked into using his invisibility to execute a criminal act on somebody's behalf - notably Behind the Mask where he is tricked into creating an invisible assassin. He is sent on missions abroad by the British Government too, to the Middle East, behind the Iron Curtain, on the Mediterranean or to Amsterdam - all courtesy of whatever stock footage was available. Yet his is not above sorting out sordid little plans for murder and blackmail that affect his friends, or those of his sister and niece that he may meet. Aside from the above, he would also investigate what he felt to be miscarriages of justice that benefited from his unique powers and advise on scientific projects that were invariably prone to sabotage.

 

Various ideas were later reused elsewhere. The idea of smuggling Tania out of the country in a coffin in The Locked Room later cropped up again in the episode of DANGER MAN, The Relaxed Informer, again by Ralph Smart. In the same series of half-hours with Patrick McGoohan as John Drake, the episode Sabotage deals with planes exploding in flight, a synopsis not dissimilar to another Ian Stuart Black adventure for Brady called Point of Destruction. Smart's Blind Justice in which Brady tricks a murderer into thinking that a blind woman can really see and identify him was reworked as Josetta for DANGER MAN. Here the original version is more satisfying as Brady can walk unseen alongside the victim, in this case Katherine Holt played by Honor Blackman, and even make it appear that she can drive a car, by sitting beside her and guiding her hands on the wheel whilst operating the peddles. Doubles, an idea used as far back in UK film series as the Sir Bliant episode of THE ADVENTURES OF SIR LANCELOT, turned up in The Decoy, and later again in The Prisoner for "DANGER MAN. With most TV still live, only filmed shows had the technical ability to allow an artiste to play dual rôles convincingly, and the chance was too good to resist.

 

 

On the whole though, the ideas for the show were new since a contemporary series of this nature had not been achieved before, and gave more range and scope than continual japes in Sherwood Forest or plunder and battle on the high seas.

Invisibility gimmicks were packed into each episode. Not content with telephones picked up by wires and guns directed into people's backs by a similar method, the things Brady - and the technical team could do - grew in size. In The Locked Room Brady dashes to the rescue on a motorcycle. At the start of Strange Partners he is mowing the lawn. The horse ridden by Brady in Picnic with Death was one of the easier effects to achieve as the scientist leaps into a speeding car. In The Prize, Brady negotiates a minefield by sweeping his path with a metal detector.

Bank Raid Raided

Mid-way through production, it seems that footage from the unused pilot was cut into new work to form another episode, Bank Raid. The new material starts the episode, but leaves the whole entry as embarrassing as the original, if not worse - notably due to a particularly painful performance from Deborah Watling who gets some of the worst lines ever written throughout the show's run. The Beatty soundtrack was redubbed throughout and certain effects shots improved, notably the scene where Williams is chased across the field, grabbed by Brady and beaten up quite convincingly.

 

Two men, Crowther and Williams, watch Sally fishing from a car by the riverside. "There she is, the Invisible Man's niece," says Crowther. The Welshman is despatched to grab the little girl - "I have a way with children" - "Better gag her with your scarf!" - and approaches the precocious child.

 

WILLIAMS: Hello. You fishin'? [Ask the bleedin' obvious]

SALLY: Yeah!

WILLIAMS: Caught anything?

SALLY: Not yet.

WILLIAMS: Not even an old boot?

SALLY: Don't be silly.

WILLIAMS: You must be Sally. You're Uncle's the Invisible Man.

SALLY: That's right. Why?

WILLIAMS: I only wanted to make certain ...

 

As the crook advances on the girl, scarf raised, a fishing rod down stream suddenly jerks up and down as Brady yells that he has hooked a fish. Oblivious to the kidnap attempt, they both set about reeling in his catch. Totally ignored by his prey, Williams returns to an irate Crowther. "Not this time! She's with her Uncle Peter! Mr Crowther, I'm not the scaredy type, but I'm not taking on the Invisible Man!" It seems the very mention of Brady's alias is enough to set any would-be villain quaking in his boots.

 

Later in their bathroom, Brady is lifting dumbbells - very shakily on wires - as Sally imitates his actions.

 

SALLY: If I do my exercises every day, will I grow up to be big and strong like you?

BRADY: I expect so Sally.

SALLY: I wish I could grow up invisible.

BRADY: You'd never get married!

SALLY: Why not?

BRADY: Well ... um ... urrr ... that's all for today. Breakfast!

 

Little Sally is sent to school ["If I was invisible, I needn't go to school" - "Why not?" - "Because nobody would know I wasn't there."] and Dee reminds her that she'll collect her from school at four. "Can't Uncle Peter come and call for me one day mummy in his invisible clothes I've told all the girls about him," says Sally in a single breath, before thankfully departing. Sally claims that she will not tell the press about her Uncle, which is odd given her reactions to the total stranger on the riverbank. Brady's nervousness towards the press pervades the episode - clearly left over from the original pilot and looking most peculiar as there isn't a reporter in sight, almost as if Brady is paranoid!

 

At the school, Crowther goes to see the headmistress as 'Dr Henderson' and tells the teacher that Dee has been involved in a bad accident and so he's come to collect 'little Sally'. Sally is brought in and Crowther explains that he will take her to her mother. "You mean I can leave school early? Hooray!" says Sally without a spark of enthusiasm. In Crowther's car, she stares at the fat crook.

 

CROWTHER: What's the matter Sally? Why are you looking at me like that?

SALLY:I was thinking how much nicer you would look if you were invisible.

 

Diane arrives by car at the school at four o'clock and sees the headmistress, only to learn that Sally has gone and nobody has a record of who the doctor was or where he was from. Dee and Brady call the police in and soon Sergeant Peterson arrives. After a mysterious phone call, Dee claims that Sally has turned up and the policeman leaves as the episode merges with the original pilot. Brady prepares to leave, invisible, with his sister.

 

DIANE: It'll be awfully cold in those invisible lab clothes of yours at this time of year.

BRADY: (GRIMLY) Just wait until I meet the man who's taken Sally. I'll soon warm up!

 

The episode is a vague improvement technically - if not in terms of dialogue. Some shots of Brady donning an overcoat are quite convincing, executed by an actor in black velvet against a black section of scenery.

There are however some highly notable episodes too. "Blind Justice" concerns the landing of a plane landing at London airport from Cairo with the crew of Arthur Holt and Sandy Mason (played by Deborah's dad, Jack Watling), his co-pilot, who is strangely reluctant to have a customs search for smuggled dope. Indeed heroin is found in Holt's luggage and he is arrested, and Mason now claims that he asked for the search and Holt was reluctant.

 

 Brady is mowing the lawn when his old friend Arthur calls him for help by 'phone, explainning how he's been framed by Mason. Before Brady can reach Mason's house the suave 'Cock' Sparrow pays a visit to Holt's wife Katherine. Both are played impeccably by Leslie Phillips and Honor Blackman. Sparrow claims he is business friend of Arthur's and fails to realise that the woman is blind. When Holt enters, Katherine hears a shot ring out and her husband falls. Peter and Dee arrive at the scene, and whilst Dee calls for an ambulance, Brady gives chase after Sparrow but loses him.

 

Inspector Heath arrives to question Katherine, and the blind woman's observations are amazing, being able to smell the man's raincoat and feel his hands were soft, not those of an artisan. Arthur has been fatally wounded. Brady confronts Heath - "Oh, the Invisible Man!" - and offers to help clear Arthur's name.

 

 

Heath brings in Mason for an interview, and when the man leaves the station a free man, the invisible Brady follows him to a newsagents where Mason leaves a payoff for the killer. Brady phones Heath - in a scene hilariously intrcut with Dave at the Winchester Club on "Invisible Television" - and watches Sparrow collect the money, following him to a restaurant. Again he calls Heath and has Katherine driven round. The only way to convict Sparrow is to trick him into a confession, and Brady tells the woman that she must walk into the restaurant, go straight up to Sparrow and accuse him. He will be her eyes, helping her to drive a car and guide her around. She accuses the killer and he runs out, so Brady and Katherine give chase in their car until Brady can overpower Sparrow and the police arrive.

 

Sparrow - alias Andrew Walter - implicates the whole ring, which includes Mason and Simmons, the customs officer. The episode ends with Katherine learning that Arthur will live after all - characteristically upbeat. 

Regular Appearances

The guest casts featured many of the actors who were continually on television at the time in such series, or who would later achieve greater fame. Willoughby Goddard, the enormous and evil Gessler in THE ADVENTURES OF WILLIAM TELL turned up in the pilot, and Tell himself, Conrad Phillips, appeared in Shadow Bomb. Zena Marshall, Rupert Davies, Patrick Troughton, Peter Sallis, Derren Nesbitt (twice), Michael Ripper (twice), Derek Bond, Edwin Richfield, Dennis Price, Colin Gordon, Irene Handl, Harold Berens, Barry Letts, Duncan Lamont, William Lucas, Bruce Seton (twice), Anton Diffring, Ewen Solon, Glyn Owen, Andrew Keir, André Morrell, Ian Hendry, Barbara Shelley and William Squire were other names to appear on the series. Robert Raglan also played a semi-regular as Detective Inspector Heath in several episodes, working with Brady's assistance.

 

The main article relating to the series appeared in "TVTimes" and its variants shortly after the show began its run and was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek report from the set called "I Meet A Man Who Isn't There" written by one Molly Douglas. Amongst the asides of 'humoring' Lisa Daniely who asks to have an invisible handbag and powder-puff handed to her, shortly before Ms Douglas' flee from the film studios in terror, there are some interesting facts. At this stage, there were four main actors involved as Peter Brady - or the Invisible Man as the article refers to the character throughout. "I'm the Body," explains a tall, dark, handsome Australian actor, "he's the Nothing. Then there's the Voice and the Headless Man. We're all invisible really."

In common with much press material of the day, Zena Marshall is billed as a regular girlfriend of Brady's, depsite the fact that she only guest stars on one episode: The Locked Room. "I've really had to be more Method than the Method, because, of course, I have to imagine my leading man," she said. "At first, kissing made me feel a bit ridiculous, but I got used to it.

"I play the girl scientist who discovers the formula for making a man invisible. It's a joy to play a 'plain Jane' rôle after so many glamour parts." And with that, the part-French, part-English and part-Irish actress was carried downstairs by the invisible Brady.

 

There is also a description of a scene being shot with Brady at a desk. Telephone directory pages were made to flip over gently before the receiver was lifted off the hook. The director, Pennington Richards, was unhappy with the directory scene and decided to reshoot. One studio hand suggested that Brady could already know the number and so didn't have to look it up to make the scene simpler, but Richards was not a man to give up easily, although he felt that the show was the toughest he had handled.

 

The article outlined several problems to date for production. One was trying to get the vicious dog to attack Brady in the scenes for Strange Partners. Another was stopping some would-be heroes from stopping what they thought was a runaway motorbike, a location sequence for the climax of The Locked Room.

For scenes such as the first pilot where Brady had to drive a car, the production company sought police permission for the location shoot. A stuntman would lie flat in the vehicle with the driver's door ajar slightly so he could see the road and steer with his hand on the bottom of the wheel. The camera would shoot the scene on the nearside as the car drove slowly, and more often than not at a slow speed to make the final print seem to have a fast moving car. 

Tim Turner Revealed

By September 1965 it was revealed in "TVWorld" that Tim Turner, a six foot actor well known for voice-overs on TV commercials, was the Invisible Man. He had started his career as a bit actor in films, and with his clear and distinctive voice became involved as Brady's vocal chords on the show. Later he played the bandaged Brady too, sweltering in bindings which he could only stand wearing for up to ten minutes at a time.

 

It seemed that the show was a particular hit in France. One particularly nutty piece of fan mail came from the inmate at a French lunatic asylum who claimed to have seen Brady walk through walls on the show - although this feat was never performed. The man claimed that he was completely sane and being held by his evil relatives - a plot from the episode Death Cell - and he hoped that Peter Brady could come and rescue him, assuring the star that the walls at the asylum were far thinner than the ones he walked through on television, so he should have no trouble. A nicer appreciation was the huge reception of fans of the show awaiting Turner's arrival at Orly Airport in 1963, complete with bandages on his face!

The strain and uncertainty of acting took its toll on Turner though, and by 1965 he was restricting his career to voice-overs. His sole credited contribution to his starring series was in the episode Man in Disguise where he played Nick, the dope smuggler who, swathed in bandages, uses Brady's stolen passport to bring heroin to a Soho vice den.

 

The series began transmissions in the London region in 1958, with a US station screening the episodes Secret Experiment, Crisis in the Desert, Behind the Mask, Shadow on the Screen, The Mink Coat, The Locked Room, The White Rabbit, Death Cell and Blind Justice between November 4th and December 30th 1958. The rest of the UK saw the series throughout 1959, with reruns well into the Sixties as late as 1966 and episodes being shown as many as three times, in no particular order after the initial Secret Experiment.

 

The concept of the unseen character was to continue in television, notably with David McCallum as Daniel Weston in the short-lived US series of the mid-Seventies, and in 1984 the authentic adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel by Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks for BBC1.

 

Although truly embarrassing with some of the scripting, particularly for Sally, it brought ITC's shows out of the past into the present with a much needed dash of fantasy thrown in.

 

to THE INVISIBLE MAN EPISODE GUIDE

.