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The stories:
0 Pilot story 1 Secret Experiment 2 Crisis in the Desert 3 Behind the Mask 4 The Locked Room 5 Picnic with Death |
6 Play to Kill
7 Shadow on the Screen 8 The Mink Coat 9 Blind Justice 10 Jailbreak 11 Bank Raid 12 Odds against Death |
13 Stranger Partners
14 Point of Destruction 15 Death Cell 16 Vanishing Evidence 17 The Prize 18 Flight into Darkness 19 The Decoy |
20 The Gun Runners
21 The White Rabbit 22 Man in Disguise 23 Man in Power 24 The Rocket 25 Shadow Bomb 26 The Big Plot |
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Shot in two thirteen episode sequences during 1958/9, this was a fascinating series with lots of scope for trick photography. Director Pennington Richards admitted, "this is the toughest assignment I have ever faced... the character though unseen, must be real... we know what he looks like: big, round about 6ft 3in, good looking athletic and active." He added, "we had him sit on a hard chair at first, but this made it difficult to imagine his body movements. So we changed this into a swivel chair. As it moves you can conjure up a vision of his body turning... the main difficulty is to avoid the danger of making him seem to be restless, every movement must be completely natural."
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Pilot Story
This untransmitted story followed the trend during the late 50's for making a pilot, particularly for showing to America, in order to sell the idea for a series. Extensive footage from this pilot was later used partly in
#1 Secret Experiment - where printed green,
partly in
#5 Picnic With Death - where printed blue, and mostly in
#11 Bank Raid - where printed red.
The part of Peter Brady was voiced by Robert Beatty. From the features of Peter Brady we see here, it is clearly not Beatty playing the physical role. Lisa Daniely plays Jane Wilson (not Diane), whilst Deborah Watling was Sally, as in the actual series.
The story begins with a white mouse disappearing, followed by a disappearing scientist. However this opening sequence lasts only about five minutes, whereas in the transmitted version there is much more explanation from Peter Brady about what he is doing. (As he disappears in this later version he wipes the sweat off his face. Then the characters of Lloyd Lamble and Ernest Clark are introduced, though they later fade from the series.) The only motif in the pilot in this sequence that disappears in the later version is the lab assistant fainting. Then in the pilot Brady drives swiftly home and phones his sister from the call box outside his house. (In the transmitted story he phones from "the crossroads.") He removes his glove and an invisible hand dials the number. Sally answers the phone (Diane, Lisa Daniely, does so in the later story). She passes the phone to Jane (Lisa Daniely!) who is told to send Sally up to bed "I don't want to scare the kid." After brother and sister meet, the anxious Jane asks him "how long do you stay that way?" Sally greets her uncle: "what's happened to your face?" Uncle Peter reminds her of the disappearing guinea pig trick he'd shown her. (In the transmitted story, he reminds Sally of the story of the King and the Magic Hat.) Then Uncle Peter removes his bandages and Sally is able to feel his invisible face "ooh, you need a shave!"
In this sequence of the pilot Brady wears the same clothing as in the later version, though Lisa Daniely and Deborah Watling are dressed differently.
Outside their house reporters and an ATV van gather "it's a siege!" Brady gives them a statement, then slams the window.
He returns to his vain task of discovering the formula to become visible again. That afternoon Sally does not return from school as usual. Her friend Linda says she went away in a taxi. But where?
A man phones saying he'll give Sally back if he can meet The Invisible Man. Jane drives Peter to an isolated detached house where she meets the crook, but Brady "takes care" of him and gets driven to the boss of the gang, who is waiting actually outside the studios! "Well, well, the things you scientists do," Crowther (Willoughby Goddard) observes. He says he won't return Sally until Brady robs £50,000 from a bank. So the invisible man creeps into the house of the bank manager (Kenneth Edwards, uncredited) and then walks into the bank to "take what you want." To elude the police he strips off and calmly walks out (in the later version he adopts a more moral note by apologising "it's only a loan, they'll get it back." Comparing the backgrounds, it's obvious this brief scene has been inserted later.)
On marshland near Rochester, Brady is reunited with Sally. He nicks their left hand drive car and the crooks chase after them in another car WPD866. Police spot Sally waving from an apparently driverless car, the scene hinting at the comic possibilities, before the crooks are wedged into a corner (a nice skit on the rather rotund Willoughby Goddard). Police look puzzled as Sally explains, then walks off down the road holding Uncle Peter's invisible hand. He sneezes.
In the actual series, the storyline was introduced that Brady wears invisible lab clothes, so doesn't catch cold. This point is rather lost in #11 Bank Raid, but in this pilot, it makes sense that poor Uncle Peter gets rather a chill.
Grope your way back to the Invisible Menu
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