heedarmy

This episode was conceived as a bit of a 'bottle show' but turned out to be one of the best-remembered episodes of the entire McMillan and Wife series.

It does have flaws - the regular cutaways to Sergeant Enright's romantic weekend, although intended to create suspense (will he turn up in time to save the Commissioner and Sally?) are just annoying. And for a Police Commissioner, McMillan is remarkably foolish about security at times - such as not keeping the front door locked! Nevertheless, it's a fun episode with a slightly darker hue than normal, generating a fair measure of suspense as the 'Asylum Killer' unfolds a sinister and apparently foolproof plot to make the Commissioner and Sally his latest victims - right down to supplying the Death March as musical accompaniment.

This pilot movie for a popular 70s series is pleasant, undemanding viewing for the most part. It is, however, worth watching for one standout sequence, a chase down the famous hills of San Francisco. Of course, we've seen plenty of Frisco car chases in films over the years. This one, however, takes place on BICYCLES - something I've never seen before in a movie or TV show.

Amusingly, the sequence uses several tropes normally associated with car chases in the cinema - so we see the villain shooting at McMillan whilst on his bike and the cyclists, at one point, veer onto the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians in their wake.

Most importantly, the chase is extremely well filmed and staged and looks genuinely dangerous at times, especially when the cyclists narrowly avoid hitting cars or travel down steep hills at alarmingly high speeds. One hopes that the stunt performers were well paid.

Following his success with "Farewell My Lovely", ITC invited Dick Richards to pay homage to another quintessentially 30s genre, the Foreign Legion movie.

Unfortunately, he seems to have followed his instructions rather too literally. One imagines that ITC executives were horrified by the finished product, a gloomy, downbeat affair that went over-budget (according to Lew Grade) and which focuses on brutality and despair, rather than on heroism and adventure. Some choppy editing betrays signs of studio intervention to try to make the film more acceptable to modern audiences. Nevertheless, it's a long haul to the admittedly splendid battle which concludes the film.

"March or Die" is not without its merits, however. There's a superb cast and beautifully-lit, painting-like images from the great cinematographer, John Alcott. At its best the film catches a haunting mood of futility and sadness and it treats all sides - the Legion, their opponents, the archaeologists led by Max Von Sydow - with surprising even-handedness. Maurice Jarre's evocative love theme is also worthy of note.

The films' biggest flaw, however, is its uneven treatment of the Foreign Legion itself. It wavers uncertainly between 30s-style adulation and 70s-era condemnation. The climax asks us to salute the enduring courage and martial traditions of the Legion, yet this contrasts oddly with the sadism and brutality we witnessed earlier. Do we really wish to admire an institution which encourages its men to abandon colleagues and let them die in the desert?