The first series of Callan was screened in 1967 on ITV, and was an ABC Television Network Production produced by Terrence Feely
Episodes
The Good Ones Are All Dead (8 July, 1967): Callan is coerced into helping the Section hand over to the Israelis an ex-SS officer, Strauss. Episode summary... Directed by Toby Robinson
Goodbye, Nobby Clarke (15 July, 1967) (Lost): Clarke, an old freind of Callan's who has been training mercenaries in Africa has a choice - dont' go back, or be killed. Directed by Peter Duguid
The Death of Robert E Lee (22 July, 1967)(Lost): Two CIA agents request the help of Hunter's Section in killing a Chinese agent, who has been trading in nuclear secrets. But his real mission in England is to kill Hunter. Directed by Peter Duguid
Goodness Burns Too Bright (29 July, 1967)(Lost): Callan is lured into going to Berlin, where Hunter wants to use him as a sacrificial lamb to facilitate the planting of a British mole. Directed by Peter Duguid
But He's a Lord, Mr Callan (5 August, 1967)(Lost): Hunter wants Callan to stop a blackmailing Lord from selling the negatives used in the blackmail to all and sundry. Directed by Piers Haggard
You Should Have Got Here Sooner (12 August, 1967):When somebody beats Lonely up, and Callan finds out who it was he turns the table on Hunter. Episode summary...
On DVD
Most sources indicate that only two of the episodes still now exist. Both of these are included on Callan - The Monochrome Years, released by Network UK.
James Bond (007) became
perhaps, the biggest cult figure
of them all, boosted to extra-
ordinary popularity by 14
books and a cluster of record-breaking films. Now a new
fictional hero is due to take
over: Callan, whose first series
begins on Central Television
this week [actually ], from London, Bill
Hagerty presents the Bond-Callan dossier...
Ona Sunday in Britain in the
mid-1960s an interviewer for a
religious television programme
asked a group of young people:
Which figure from history would
you most like to have been?
The dutiful answers tumbled into
the microphone... . Dr
Schweitzer, Jesus Christ, James
nd.
James Bond?
Yeah, well, he's great. Gets all
those birds and kills people and
that. Know what I mean?
The clerical tone may have been shattered beyond salvation, but we knew what he meant all right. The
inarticulate stuttering of the witless
young man confirmed what we had
known all along to be true: James
Bond lived.
And We wanted to be him, too.
Because... well, because he got
those birds and killed people
and that.
That was in the Sixties. A decade
during which Bonderama in
the shape of books, films, clothes, toys
and even cars flooded the markets and the minds of the West. But self-
Identification is a capricious exercise; those of us who wanted to be
Bidn - who were Bond when
Imagination wrested control - We always ripe for the transfer of allegiance to a bolder, better, more excitinf hero.
Now we may find him.
His name is David Callan, as played by Edward Woodward, and he is the absolute antithesis of Bond
- as, of course, he had to be. Our chart (opposite page) shows how
they differ.
From the tip of the thick black
comma of hair falling over his right
eyebrow to the Balkan and Turkish
mixture cigarettes, especially made
for him by Morland's of Grosvenor
Street, Bond was elegant.
The Sea Island cotton shirts, dark
blue alpaca suits, thin black knitted
silk ties, the Rolex Oyster Perpetual
wristwatch, the familiarity with the
roulette wheel and the bridge table
- all are indicative of a public
school upbringing laced perfectly
with impeccable taste.
Callan, Mr James Mitchell's
creation for Thames television, is
about as elegant as a drag artiste
on ice. He wears the most frightful
clothes, nondescript suits, an old
raincoat, a patterned scarf and, on
at least one occasion. a quite
offensive dressing gown. One imagines that he would not know a
roulette wheel from a doughnut, nor bridge from beat-your-
neighbours-out-of-doors. Elegant,
no. Why, he even travels by bus.
He lives in Branscombe Terrace.
Fulham, in a flat with a special
anti-burglar lock and a handful of
anonymous furniture. Bond lived in
a Chelsea flat with a Scottish
housekeeper. Callan shoots straight.
Bond did it not only with gun but
with golf club, playing off nine.
Attitude is another strong dividing
line. Bond had dedication: Callan is
a rebel and has, it seems, always
been so.
Having yo-yo'd his way between
private and corporal during a
spectacular army career, he biffed
some infantry sergeants - note the
plural - and the DSM for which
he had been recommended was
withheld. Then he tried to rob a
jeweller's safe - and spent 15
months in jail.
But it is since being recruited to
Hunter's special investigation
branch that the anti-social side of
his mature emerged. This is the
point at which the television series takes up his life. In it he tells his
boss: We're all numbers, all
bloody zombies.
Callan's and Bond's experiences
with women, too, are very different.
Bond eased a succession of ladies
into bed and then married one of
them, only for her to be murdered
by the dastardly Blofield. Callan,
very much a bachelor, keeps any
romantic attachments very private
indeed.
There are, however, similarities
between Bond and Callan, as again
there had to be if one was to
replace the other as the nub of a
nation's day-dreams.
Both lost their parents when
young. Bond's parents, Andrew
Bond of Glencoe and his Swiss wife
Monique Delacroix, were killed in
a climbing accident when James
was 11. He was, from then on,
brought up by an aunt, now dead.
Callan's mum and dad, names
unknown, were killed by a V-1
flying bomb in 1944 when David
was 13. He was, from then on,
brought up by an aunt who has
since died.
Both have been described as very
handy at killing people. They would
be the same age. Both have done
their best work alone. Pity they
never knew each other.
What, then, does Callan have
that will enable him to succeed
Bond as the man every man would
like to be? The man every
woman would like to be with? He
dispenses with the upper-class
trappings of Bondmanship. He also
impresses by his dislike and distrust
of authority, he treats Hunter in a
manner most of us would like to
employ when dealing with the boss,
bureaucracy or the traffic warden.
But, more than this, Callan
humanises hero-worship; he has
passions and ideals and frustration,
just like all of us. In a way that
Bond never could, Callan cares.
