1 Hot Money 5*
2 Death in the Dressing Room 4*
3 New Invisible Man 4*
4 The Second Mona Lisa 4*
5 At Night all Cats are Grey 5*
6 The Abominable Snowman 3*
7 The Lively Ghost 5*
8 The Sorcerer 4*
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9 The Deadly Gift 6*
10 Passage at Arms 3*
11 The Headless Hat 3*
12 The Case of the Kidnapped Poodle 4*
13 The Misguided Missal 6*
14 Death and the Other Monkey 4*
15 Death in Inner Space 4*
16 The Devil Sells his Soul 7*
17 Error at Daybreak 6*
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18 The Invisible Knife 3*
19 The Stolen Crime 5*
20 The Missing Link 4*
21 Murder is Permanent 4*
22 Present Tense 5*
23 The Silent Vow 3*
24 The Silver Curtain 2^
25 The Strange Event At Roman Fall 5*
26 The Talking Head 6*
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The first home grown filmed crime series to be shown on the new Independent Television Channel in Britain.
In fact, the date the first three stories on this list were made was back in 1952, directed by the great Cy Endfield, as the feature film Colonel March Investigates.
The remaining 23 stories were filmed in 1954, the first television series produced under the auspices of Hannah Weinstein (1912-1984),
once famously described by Peter Noble as "the Queenpin of the half hour movie." Although her name does not appear in the screen credits, it is certain that this is the tv series that she cut her teeth on.
The stories were based on a crime novel written by eminent criminal novelist Carter Dickson (aka John Dickson Carr).
Boris Karloff starred as the enigmatic Colonel March head of D3, The Department of Queer Complaints, with Ewan Roberts as the less than brilliant Inspector Ames.
My favourite episodes: perhaps #16 The Devil Sells His Soul, and #17 Error at Daybreak, though no story is really scintillating The picture is from this latter story
Best moment: in #13 The Misguided Missal, Col March indulges in some neat trickery to outsmart even the great Chan Canasta
Dud episode: #10 Passage at Arms is very dull, odd that it was chosen as the first of the series to be screened on ATV London!
To the Dinosaur TV Crime Menu
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