Catherine The Great (1/8)

Tense political thriller about a cross-dressing assassin on the loose in London.

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Entertainment

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• The
• Sweeney
• EustonFilms
• ThamesTV
• LWT

[Banner1979]

Tony Beckley was also excellent as a very creepy and misogynistic school employee in the 1970 thriller Assault starring Suzy Kendall and Frank Finlay. He seemed to fit these roles like a glove so it's a pity he died early. Like I said before, he should have been in The Sweeney.

[Davies09091986]

best of the entire series and never really get flagged up. Fantastic actor, great to see him playing a villian with equal skill in the Military Men episode up on here. Thanks for posting it!

[Banner1979]

@Davies09091986 You're welcome. If only TV was this good now, but alas, you can't have everything. Garfield Morgan who played Chief Inspector Haskins in The Sweeney was the villain Major Neil Hallett in that episode and Godfrey James was his sadistic sidekick. Tony Beckley who played Catherine was also in Get Carter and it's a shame he didn't do The Sweeney either.

[Davies09091986]

@Banner1979 I think Beckley may have died before the Sweeney really hit its stride, otherwise I'm sure he would have starred in an episode. Would have been perfect for the Series 3 story "Tomorrow Man" - perhaps in place of John Hurt (although its a great perfomance by him). D'you own any episodes of Target as well? Never seen it but understand it was the BBC's attempt to copy the Professionals with Patrick Mower. Any truth in that?

[Banner1979]

@Davies09091986 That's a shame. George Sewell appeared in the series 4 Sweeney ep Bait as a villain. I agree that Beckley would have been very good as Tony Grey the computer programmer who set out to humiliate his boss played by George Cole. Hurt was good, although I know some Sweeney fans who thought he was a bit OTT. I don't have Target but I know a person who does. It was more like The Sweeney with lots of violence and action, but not much depth,although it was very gritty in places.

[Davies09091986]

Great episode - I'd watched a documentary a few years ago which covered the Police series of the 70's. and Special Branch was flagged up as a forgotten gem. In some ways it's grittier than The Sweeney, although I can't quite put my finger on why that is. Possibly because the episodes had a smaller budget and don't look quite as impressive as The Sweeney was.

Anyway shame this isn't repeated on ITV4 - there's enough episodes for it to be - God knows why they won't!

[Banner1979]

@Davies09091986 They should really as it was a tough and realistic cop show and I think you would have found it grittier because it was for the most part very serious. Craven & Haggerty had some nice banter but it wasn't as humorous or lively as Regan and Carter's relationship. Also, the violence in some SB episodes was a bit more gorier than The Sweeney. I'm just glad to own it on DVD.

[25ghr]

Camp ,Freddy , Great actor died young , he stole the show in this episode of Special Branch , it was the best episode by far , very offbeat , very London 70s

[Davies09091986]

@Banner1979 I think Beckley may have died before the Sweeney really hit its stride, otherwise I'm sure he would have starred in an episode. Would have been perfect for the Series 3 story "Tomorrow Man" - perhaps in place of John Hurt (although its a great perfomance by him). D'you own any episodes of Target as well? Never seen it but understand it was the BBC's attempt to copy the Professionals with Patrick Mower. Any truth in that?

[Davies09091986]

@Banner1979 Absolutely true, hadn't really picked up on that but it makes a lot of sense. Do you own the Black and White series as well and if so how do you rate those? All I've seen is Trojka, which has been posted here somewhere. I actually really enjoyed it despite it being pretty slow compared to the Craven era.

Final little point on The Sweeney I really don''t think Garfield Morgan ever gets the credit he deserves for his performances in the series. His scenes with Regan are some of