Sixties
City presents
a wide-ranging series of
articles on all aspects of the Sixties, penned by the creator of the iconic
60s music paper Mersey
Beat
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Sixties
City presents
a wide-ranging series of
articles on all aspects of the Sixties, penned by the creator of the iconic
60s music paper Mersey
Beat
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A
British action series produced by ITC, filmed in and around Pinewood Studios
(Sound Stages J and K) and on location in London, England during 1966 /
67. There were 30 colour one-hour episodes, originally screened from September
27th 1967. The eponymous hero was McGill, a former CIA agent, who had been
framed and tossed out of the agency. He became a freelance operator working
in Europe, using his skills as a private eye. Several years prior to becoming a private detective he was third in the chain of command of the European network of the CIA. His immediate superior, Harry Tysson, instructed him to allow a scientist named La Forbe to defect to Eastern Europe. Soon after, Tysson himself was believed killed in a plane crash in the Mediterranean. McGill was then branded a traitor and dishonourably discharged. He later discovered that the situation had been engineered by the CIA to place La Forbe as a double agent – and that Tysson didn’t die. However, to reveal the truth would probably result in the death of the double agent and his former boss, who is also undercover. McGill remains in Europe, with no permanent home, carrying a suitcase with a change of clothes and a gun. For a £300 fee he takes on a variety of dangerous assignments and receives no help from the authorities or his former colleagues. Sir Lew Grade had noticed actor Richard Bradford in the film ‘The Chase’ and offered him the part of McGill (the character’s first name is never revealed). The Texas-born actor had studied at Lee Strasberg’s Method Actor’s School and his hair had begun to turn prematurely grey at the age of 16. He portrayed the character of McGill as a humourless man, but a person sympathetic to the plight of others, with his own code of honour. He is assigned to track down blackmailers, kidnappers, assassins, gold thieves and foreign agents in cases which take him as far afield as Portugal and Africa. Guest players in the series included Judy Geeson, Donald Houston, Felicity Kendall, John Gregson, Donald Sutherland and Barbara Shelley. |
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| Episodes
and first transmission dates: BRAINWASH - September 27th 1967 THE SITTING PIGEON - October 4th 1967 DAY OF EXECUTION - October 11th 1967 VARIATION ON A MILLION BUCKS (Part 1) - October 18th 1967 VARIATION ON A MILLION BUCKS (Part 2) - October 25th 1967 MAN FROM THE DEAD - November 1st 1967 SWEET SUE - November 8th 1967 ESSAY IN EVIL - November 15th 1967 THE GIRL WHO NEVER WAS - November 22nd 1967 ALL THAT GLITTERS - November 29th 1967 DEAD MAN'S SHOES - December 6th 1967 FIND THE LADY - December 13th 1967 THE BRIDGE - December 20th 1967 THE MAN WHO STOOD STILL - December 27th 1967 BURDEN OF PROOF - January 3rd 1968 |
THE WHISPER - January 10th 1968 WHY THEY KILLED NOLAN - January 17th 1968 THE BOSTON SQUARE - January 24th 1968 SOMEBODY LOSES, SOMEBODY... WINS? - January 31st 1968 BLIND SPOT - February 7th 1968 NO FRIEND OF MINE - February 14th 1968 THE JIGSAW MAN - February 21st 1968 WEB WITH FOUR SPIDERS - February 28th 1968 WHICH WAY DID HE GO, McGILL? - March 6th 1968 PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN - March 13th 1968 THE REVOLUTIONARIES - March 20th 1968 WHO'S MAD NOW? - March 27th 1968 THREE BLINKS OF THE EYES - April 3rd 1968 CASTLE IN THE CLOUDS - April 10th 1968 NIGHT FLIGHT TO ANDORRA - April 17th 1968 |
 Series Trailer |
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Bill Harry attended the Liverpool College of Art with Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon and made the arrangements for Brian Epstein to visit The Cavern, where he saw The Beatles for the first time. Bill was a member of 'The Dissenters' and the founder and editor of 'Mersey Beat', the iconic weekly music newspaper that documented the early Sixties music scene in the Liverpool area and is possibly best known for being the first periodical to feature a local band called 'The Beatles'. He has worked as a high powered publicist, doing PR for acts such as Suzi Quatro, Free, The Arrows and Hot Chocolate and has managed press campaigns for record labels such as CBS, EMI, Polydor. Bill is the critically acclaimed author of a large number of books about The Beatles and the 60s era including 'The Beatles Who's Who', 'The Best Years of the Beatles' and the Fab Four's 'Encyclopedia' series. He has appeared on 'Good Morning America' and has received a Gold Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. |
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