compound eye

Does anyone know what this was?

Shown in the mid 70's on BBC1 at tea-time and probably about a team of masked robbers who used trapeze skills to pull off a robbery...?

I remember it causing me to swing as high as possible in the garden going "dah dah d-dah-dahhhh..." at the top of my lungs alot....

It's the music I'm really keen to find, as I've heard it in other contexts and am sure it's well known... It sounds vaguely spaghetti western in its urgency and energy, plus it has great use of sharp notes to move from one pitch to the next.

I simply must have that tune!

Thanks

oxfam1uk

Oh golly, that brings back memories !

I can remember just about everything about this series - except its title !

I recall that it was extremely well-directed and exciting, though obviously a pastiche of films like "The Pink Panther". Lots of clowns in it too, including the famous one whose name is on the tip of my tongue ...

compound eye

Sounds like you've got the music in your head just like me...?

I'm half wondering if I should go to my fave mp3 site and listen to spag-western snippets to see if I can find it,- it has that feeling doesn't it?!

I seem to remember the crooks had a maroon van, old style 50s/60s van they all bowled up in, and they were dressed in black with party masks of some sort. The clowns do ring a bell somehow, but not sure...

oxfam1uk

Was it this tune "Hogan's thing" (also frequently heard in "The Sweeney" ?

De Wolfe Music - Search page

You have to click on the play arrow to hear it.

compound eye

Sorry 'Fam, that's not it... no flutey wah wah in this one.

It sounds very Ennio Morricone actually - hard to put it in your head unless I were to hum it doon the foon at you!

I have to have it though... what every it is

redstar65

can you please tell me more about this programme
what time was it on?
was it a series?
what channel?
any known actors?

oxfam1uk

This was one of the weekday afternoon serials that the BBC used to make each year in the 1970s. Other examples were "Out of Bounds", "Codename Icarus", "King Cinder", etc.

Usually they involved a boy and girl "solving a crime" of some sort or other. These serials were surprisingly ambitious and expensive looking (all made on film).

I wish I could remember the name of the circus one - it might have been something as simple as "Trapeze". The first episode began with a very impressive sequence of a masked acrobat breaking into a museum and using his trapeze skills to steal some valuable object or other (like in the "Pink Panther" films). The rest of the serial involved two kids who worked at a circus trying to discover "who was that masked man ?"

compound eye

Drat, we're sooo close with this one!

...the way you describe it is spot on 'Fam! It's coming clear in my memory too now.

Can you imagine the music yet? Very robust and 'western' wasn't it? It probably stuck in my head because it was that first episode when the trapeze robbery was happening.

There must be someone else on the board you knows what the series was called, and what that choon is..!

compound eye

***BUMP***

Anyone got any ideas yet?

CaptainWaggett

Could it possibly be A Place to Hide? According to The Hill and Beyond : Children's Television Drama - An Encyclopedia , a family who run a b and b discover that three of their guests are bankrobbers. The father uses his professional magician skills to fight crime (there's no mention of trapezes though). It was shown on Sunday afternoons.

retroman

I must admit, Captain Waggett, my first instincts were that it was A Place to Hide ( starring incidentally Brian Capron of Corri Richard Hillman fame) . But and i could be wrong I thought it was shown on ITV , not BBC ?

"I've agreed with you from the first about the danger. But now I think you are utterly mistaken".

smudge

A PLACE TO HIDE was indeed shown on ITV and starred Anna Karen's hubby, the late Terry Duggan.

Smudge

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

CaptainWaggett

Ah, the BBC/ITV divide! I confess that we were a BBC family so no doubt while a Place to Hide was on, we were watching Anne of Green Gables or David Copperfield on the other side...

smudge

"I know my place....."



Smudge

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

CaptainWaggett

As you should. I'm sure you were one of those kids who sent off filthy lucre to the Magpie appeal while our butler was polishing the milk bottle tops for Val and John