The Grand Junction Case

The Scotland Yard series are described as action/thrillers on the banners but this is a misnomer. There is very little action to get thrilled about. The viewer has to imagine what the police and medics are looking at below the body sheets because they are never shown. Supt Duggan (Russell Napier) takes every opportunity to fly around the world to investigate cases so I'm assuming he has an unlimited travel allowance.

Now for the good things. The storylines and adaptations of known facts about real cases are excellent. The mid to late 1950s locations and character behaviour (including non stop smoking) are true to form and the monochrome output creates an atmospheric feel. It is likely that a number of up and coming or hitherto relatively unknown actors had roles in this series and it's good fun trying to spot them. Cockney character actress Rita Webb, Margot Bryant (Minnie Caldwell), Harry H Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell being among them. I wonder if that's where those last two first met before moving on to greater things?

Easy viewing.

This is one of the most memorable episodes in this very tidy true crime series from the 1950s with the emphasis on truth rather than fiction, introduced by the ever-sepulchral criminologist, Edgar Lustgarten. It is from the outset grisly - the discovery of a dismembered leg in a canal.Very neat character vignettes which advance and add interest to the plot from a master-tattooist, a man with a missing wife - and Albert Steptoe (Wilfred Brambell) as a pathologist.

Only one limb was found in the canal so the search resumed. Lustgarten intoned: "The police continued their legwork" I'm sure he didn't intend the pun, he very much left it to others to do any humour in this series.

Another worthy series choice by Talking Pictures TV 6.5 out of 10

A woman's leg is found floating in a canal, The Pathologist states that it's been severed with such precision, inferring that it must have been done with someone with professional experience.

I've slowly been working my way through this series, and each episode has offered some degree of interest, this definitely ranks as the standout episode though.

I really did enjoy the mystery itself, and there were some appealing characters, and of course some interesting attitudes of the time.

One of the most interesting talking points has to be the presence of Wilfrid Brambell, pre Steptoe and Son, he looks so refined, and speaks in what I think is his natural accent, many associate him with his Albert Steptoe voice, but he sounds so different here.

William Lyon Brown was a hoot as eccentric tattoo artist Pearce, and those words about tattoos and the 'types' that have them, wow times really have changed.

Very interesting episode, 7/10.

Body parts of a woman are found in a canal. The only lead Supt Duggan (Russell Napier) has that the woman had a faded tattoo of an Edelweiss flower.

The search takes Duggan to Nice where the dead woman might have come from.

One possible suspect has a missing wife but she later turns up.

There some interesting turns such as Wilfred Bramble playing a rather posh pathologist.

It does rely on too many coincidences. A tattooist who removed a tattoo and kept details of all his customers.

Some information overheard at the police canteen becomes useful and leads them to a more cutting culprit.