Public Eye

It's been over 30 years since I last saw Public Eye on UK ITV, but having just watched some of the 1969 episodes released on DVD it's as I remembered it: grimy and gritty. There was a marvellously downbeat downtrodden atmosphere to all the series (I'm too young to remember the first from the mid-sixties, all wiped), partly thanks to the fact neither ABC nor Thames wanted to spend much money on it, and not just the acting or the stories. Those who remember the series have no chance in forgetting the lugubrious theme music, oft repeated per episode at the commercial break bumpers.

Welcome to Brighton? broadcast 30.07.69: Framed ex convict Frank Marker indelibly played by angular and craggy Alfred Burke leaves HMP Ford for a new start in Brighton. A few ordinary adventures later his cynical outlook is seemingly proved justified by our glimpse into a dull grainy world of varying but usually seedy human emotions. Being an "Enquiry Agent" was in his blood, as performing a simple favour to an acquaintance in prison brings out the bloodhound in him.

I don't go overboard for "realism" in films or TV - give me Abbott & Costello any day! But I do recommend Public Eye for something refreshingly different to today's type of TV drama, a realism at once hard but at the same time humdrum and fantastic too, and also basically portraying a non-colour, non-violent and non-CGI world too.

Public Eye was a fine series and deserves a place in the British TV Hall of Fame. Luckily, it's available on DVD, and the British channel Talking Pictures TV shows it regularly.

It was part of Alfred Burke's brilliance in the part that Frank Marker was a character with no real character traits. We knew nothing about his background, a mystery which was never solved for us by the writers. Originally, the character of Marker was going to be a tough, Lee Marvin figure, but casting Burke was an inspired move on the part of the producers. With his lined, seen-it-all face and his sensitive, laconic manner, Burke rooted the concept firmly in reality. Marker dealt with the dark, petty underbelly of the world, and was only ever a few pounds short of bankruptcy. It seemed only natural that one day he would be arrested (framed for handling stolen goods) and go to prison (ending the original ABC TV series). When he emerged some time later (Thames TV taking over production), Marker has quit Birmingham for seedy Brighton for a masterly 1969 series entirely penned by Roger Marshall. Here, Marker is dealing as much with the repercussions of his own lonely, solitary character as he is with the shadow of prison. Later (with the advent of colour TV), the character moved from there to the more upmarket locale of Windsor, where for a time he became partners with the sharp, ambitious alpha-male Ron Gash.

Marker always eschewed the term "detective" in his dealings with clients, preferring the term that real British private eyes use, "enquiry agent"; at a stroke, this narrative move cut Public Eye off from all other detective series and encouraged a more downbeat approach. In this, it followed its source: Anthony Marriott was a real-life enquiry agent whose techniques and experiences were the basis of the show. A movie made from the material might have been a British classic.

One other point: the haunting bluesy theme for some reason is rarely mentioned, was never released on record, and is not credited on IMDb.com. It is by veteran TV bandleader Bob Sharples (under the pseudonym Robert Earley).

I would thoroughly recommend this series to anyone who is tired of the trend in British TV for murder in middle England, conspiracy and terrorism stories and the excess of melodrama in the soaps.

Public Eye brings the viewer down to earth with a bump, no glamour, gentility or sensational plots here just the daily grind of trying to earn an honest crust. Frank Marker, marvellously portrayed by Alfred Burke, is a private enquiry agent who investigates the most routine cases imaginable. He may be checking on unfaithful husbands, looking at minor fraud or petty theft. Occasionally he is used by clients who have ulterior motives and he gets involved in cases he wishes he hadn't. The story lines are thoroughly believable so that viewers quickly identify with the situation. The characters are well developed, sympathetic and demand your attention, but it is Marker who always draws the viewers eye. A loner, he does not make friends easily (at all!) yet we find ourselves identifying with him and caring about him. Add to this Public Eye was made 35 years ago and it is fascinating to see how values and attitudes have changed in the intervening years.

The 1969 series concentrates more on Marker himself following his release from prison for a crime he did not commit. While the 1971 series sees him going about his normal enquiry business. My only regret is that most of the early series (1-3) are lost forever and of the other 4 series only the two mentioned above have so far been released on DVD.

Currently enjoying a well deserved rerun on UK tv; how refreshing it is to see a drama that doesn't need to resort to rape, murder, histrionics or sex every five minutes, and contains clear & audible dialogue without any mumbling or constant background music. Public Eye works brilliantly, despite an often minimal plot, because the writing and acting are first class, certainly a good deal better than anything i've seen of late. Proof that less is more.

No sensationalism, no mindless action, no mediocre plot twists for shock value, no condescending preaching, no axes to grind and no ham fisted attempts to push political agendas. This show is a revelation for us mired in this loathesome modern world.

The show conveys more reality to what life is really like than reality television ever did which is not so ironic given how phony and jaded reality tv is. Television during the era of Public Eye was theatrical and this show, shot almost entirely on video instead of the then standard, video in studio/film on location is no different.

Alfred Burke is an actor I barely saw in other shows. He makes Frank Marker all his own and he seems to have had no trouble doing it. Frank Marker is a likable but seedy inquiry agent, a title he prefers instead of private detective. It's the work that makes him seedy. Unglamorous realistic plot lines. Sometimes Marker gets more trouble than he expects but alot of the trouble you would not expect to see other fictional private eyes to get into in old movies or novels. Marker's character is fully fleshed out as well as the many characters that come and go over the course of the series. Edward Woodward once noted that television during this era was written in a way where you get a complete picture of all the characters in each show because they are fully realized in the writing. They aren't ciphers for the actors to fill in the blank based on their lines. That detail in writing is lost in 95% of today's television which is a shame.

The show moves about and has some interesting locations. The Thames series began in 1969 with Marker in Brighton, then Windsor, Walton and later Chertsey. During the ABC years, it was London and Birmingham.

The '69 season has a story arch for the Marker character instead of being focused mostly on a case per episode like the rest of the series. Much of the focus before '69 went to the supporting characters since the details of each case unfolds through their time on screen. The series returns to this format for all of the remaining episodes from '71 to '75. The cases are believable and the endings are often unique and surprising. There is one episode where Marker is hired to discover who is blackmailing a woman. She is threatened to have some secret about herself revealed to her husband who travels alot for his work and is not around. Much of the episode, we as the viewer try to guess what could be her secret since the woman isn't sure herself. We also follow Marker playing a cat and mouse game with the people he suspects are behind it all. It turns out her husband was an excon and the blackmailer knew him from prison, saw he had done well financially since his release and decided to pretend to have something on his wife to get some money out of them. Marker and the husband learn this after setting up a payoff and staking out the dropoff to see who picks up the money. The husband, feeling the anticipated anger also feels conflicted given that the wouldbe blackmailer is a fellow excon who clearly was not doing well since being released. An unexpected act of kindness occurs instead of an expected act of violence. Conflicted sums up how many of these episodes end. Like life, not much is cut and dry. These stories are no different.

The Thames television episodes are out of print on DVD but are probably still in rerun and on streaming sites somewhere but the ABC series during the first 4 years are almost entirely gone. That is roughly 40 episodes which were on tapes that were wiped as per the policy in those days for much of British television and unlike Doctor Who or the Avengers, I think it unlikely these missing episodes will turn up in some dusty film cans in an abandoned TV studio in Bangladesh or Tanzania. Appreciating what still exists from this series isn't difficult. As I said, entertainment is not of this quality anymore. So much focus is centered on everything EXCEPT what's most important, the quality of the story.