Die Abenteuer des Dick Turpin

The first film made by RKO Pictures, together with London Weekend Television, the film version also starred Mary Crosby, who had just finished shooting "JR" in the TV series DALLAS.

Not a wonderful movie, but RKO had just gotten started and could only co-produce in the early years. The terrific experience working with LWT led RKO to establish its post-production and international distribution headquarters in London. In fact, RKO hired several people from LWT and staffed its London office completely with people from the British film industry. For many years, the British contingent at RKO ran production and international sales.

I used to watch this series on TV back in the day when I was a kid, sometime during the 1980s. And I do actually remember it as being a good series and entertaining, especially for a young boy. And thus, as I had the opportunity to revisit the series here in 2024, of course I did so without a second thought.

The storyline told over the four seasons is a well-written and entertaining one. It is a storyline of highway robbery and swashbuckling, mixed with a light sense of comedy and some interesting characters. I have to say that I was genuinely entertained throughout the course of the four seasons. One thing about the seasons did puzzle me though, why the series started out with 13 episodes in season one, then was drastically reduced to 7, 5 and 6 episodes in seasons 2, 3 and 4 respectively. Nevertheless, the episodes proved entertaining as the story progressed.

Richard O'Sullivan did a great job in portraying the highway man Dick Turpin, as did Michael Deeks as Swiftnick. There are some good performances and a couple of familiar faces on the cast list as well, with the likes of David Daker, Mary Crosby, Patrick Macnee and Donald Pleasance.

If you enjoy period dramas and swashbuckling, then "Dick Turpin" is definitely a series well-worth sitting down and watching. And for a series that ran from 1979 to 1982, I have to say that the show actually still holds up today, which is a great testimony to the production value and the effort put into creating the series back then.

There is a good amount of fencing in the series, and it was performed quite nicely on the screen. And also a fair amount of gunfights, so the series definitely has some action elements to it as well.

It was definitely worth the effort of sitting down and revisiting it here in 2024. However, it would have been nice if they had at least ensured a proper ending to the series, and not leave the audience hanging - no pun intended.

My rating of "Dick Turpin" lands on a well-deserved six out of ten stars.

Why are users giving this wonderful piece of TV a bum rap ?

First of all the casting of Richard O'Sullivan was inspired, an actor known solely for one comic role spun over nearly a decade made the character his own. This was ripping boys own stuff. Top entertainment with characterisation as good as you could expect from Richard Carpenter, a man with a track record of success.

Each story is well contained within a 25 minute timeframe. I have recently purchased the DVD of series 1 and having watched them all at the rate of 1 a week would recommend them to anyone with an interest in light drama.

Okay, so the other comment about this show may be partially right: this is pretty bad; but it sure doesn't represent the best of British tv in the 70s. Perhaps the writer was confusing it with some of his own, homegrown tv: like the Dukes of Hazzard, which was foisted on UK audiences at about the same time as this was airing.

Turpin had its moments - oh and it was nothing to do with Napoleon or the 1800s, either (hence the reason you didn't see any Frenchmen...); it was set nearly a century earlier and Turpin was returning home from the War of the Spanish Succession - same enemy, of course, but then, some things don't change. I believe the series was replaced in the schedules (in the UK) by Robin of Sherwood - that's the one without the American accent.

So simple. Napoleon's blockade in the early 1800s. British smuggler swashbuckling in Normandy and Kent. English officers are the baddies (I don't remember seeing any French baddies).

All episodes are the same: escape from the British police, save the idiotic young sidekick, get the girl aka barmaid, kick the captain's butt, the captain is humiliated by the commander, kick the captain and the commander's butts. end.

So... what was so great ? ha ha ha the music of course ! The theme is completely amazing. It's been 20 years and the only reason why I remember this crappiest of all piece of ol'rubbish British TV from the late seventies is the music.

The French counterpart of this series is called Schulmeister, l'espion de l'Empereur, and it takes place during the same period of history with a former smuggler from Alsace, a fat version of Asterix, turned into an Imperial Commissioner (wow) and enforcing Napoleon's way all over Europe. Much more fun. Jacques Fabri is Schulmeister and Roger Carel is Hamel the sidekick.

But the music sucked. Big time.