Dixon of Dock Green

[dpgmel]

Jack Warner fans will be jumping for joy : Acorm are releasing the first seven colour episodes of this series in June :


Amazon.co.uk: Dixon of Dock Green [DVD]: Film & TV

[Dean Williams]

Yes, I intended to post about this yesteray but never did get around to it. Great news, long overdue. By 'first seven colour episodes' of course they mean first surviving seven! Shame that out of over 400 episodes only 33 compelte episdoes survive and I do hope the colour releases sell well enough to lead to them releasing the surviving b/w episodes which are much more typical of the series and what everyone remembers more than the later colour episodes where Jack Warner was practically being pushed around in a wheelchair! :)

[FilmBuff]

This is very good news indeed and I shall certainly be buying them, lets hope that perhaps they will release some of the Black&White episodes in the future

[Heinrich]

The color episodes were never up to the standard of the lost black and white shows.

[FilmBuff]

No disrespect to Jack Warner but I think he looked quite old in the B/w episodes surely he must look even older in the colour episodes.

[Dean Williams]

When Dixon finally finished in 1976 he was 80, but as you say FilmBuff he did look passed ordinary beat-copper age by the early 60s! But I think that's all part of the never-never-land the the series occupies, it was fairly anachronistic when it started in 1955. People go on about Z Cars being a gritty alternative to it from 1962, you even had series in the 50s like DIAL 999 that were a little more action and less homely.

But for me that is largely the charm of the series, it occupies the same space as the Huggetts films.

Some of the colour episodes I've seen are very good, I like 'Sounds', where they try to locate the scene of a crime by a recording on a tape, having to work out noises in the background like construction work and then work out where that could be in the eare. But Jack WArner is barely in them, he's a desk sergeant and the other coppers and teh guest cast of crooks and victims get most of the airtime. The b/w episdoes are more representive of proper Dixon!

[Dean Williams]

George Dixon sounds.JPG

Sergeant Dixon in the episode 'Sounds' from 1974. You can see how frail he looks here aged 79, and there's another two years to go, can't see him doing any chucking out at the pubs on a Friday night!

This was all they could manage out of him, propping him up behind a desk. With the greatest of respect to old Jack Warner he looks more suited to filming for The Mummy.

Even by 1960 Warner was 65 and passed retirement age for active polcie duty.

[FilmBuff]

Jack is definitely looking quite old in this clip from 1973 still at 78 when this was made we would all be looking old I have only
just realized he was born in 1895 ..........

[Gerald Lovell]

I think someone once pointed out that when the series started in 1955, Jack Warner was already past the retirement age for bobbies on the beat. If I recall correctly, in the last series, he was the station collator and therefore could spend the whole time out of uniform and behind a desk in the office.

I also remember a Stanley Baxter sketch were he was "doing" POLICE 5 as Shaw Taylor and warning members of the public about a bogus policeman calling at people's doors. It got a big laugh when he said the fake P.C. was 80 years old. It got an even bigger laugh when he said the chap was called George Dixon.

[Moor Larkin]

I recall that in Heartbeat, the tough old Sergeant looked completely out of place by the end of the run. They did have the decency to retire him as a copper in the series as I recall, but he looked a bit knackered even for that... .....

My turn will come........

There is/was one moment in Dixon of Dock Green that was pretty savage, and that has stuck in my mind ever since it scarred me mentally all however many years ago. There was a a burglar type, whom I imagine Dixon was trying to steer onto the path of righteousness, but anyway I have no idea really, but there was a sense of tragedy in the climactic scene, which involved the whippersnapper - so I would guess this was the sub-plot (I think it often was because they were always narrated "moral tales"). Those of a certain age will recall that in working class areas it was common practice once upon a time, to stick broken bottle shards into cement along the tops of backyard walls, to keep out the riff-raff and maybe the cats from next door.

Well, the final scene was the whippersnapper running towards such a wall, which he would endeavour to jump onto, grip the top of the wall, and hop over, and so avoid the geriatric copper. I think it was shot so that we overlooked the top of the wall and could see the idiot running towards us and so we knew exactly what was going to happen..... GULP .... and the clever camera work cut away se we were now behind him, from Dixon's pov, as he shouted the warning but was ignored as the young man leapt, and so we saw him in our minds eye - sort of hung on the wall like a criminal Christ - impaled through the palms as we imagined - and he either slipped down or was lifted off..... I forget which. I was probably running out the room by then and reminding myself to always look before I leapt, next time I was playing out.

Nowadays of course Dixon would end the show by telling us how many thousands the poor young man had received in compensation from the house-holder, who was due to be released from the Scrubs the year after next.....

[wadey]

Remember the actress trying to say the title, was it Pat Coombes ?

[Gerald Lovell]

It was Victor Maddern who found it next to impossible to say "Dock Green nick" without spoonerisming it into something rude.

[wadey]

Thanks Gerald, that's the chap, very funny indeed

[CaptainWaggett]

Your next box set - Dixon of Dock Green

[Mr Sloane]

I recall that in Heartbeat, the tough old Sergeant looked completely out of place by the end of the run. They did have the decency to retire him as a copper in the series as I recall, but he looked a bit knackered even for that... .....

My turn will come........

There is/was one moment in Dixon of Dock Green that was pretty savage, and that has stuck in my mind ever since it scarred me mentally all however many years ago. There was a a burglar type, whom I imagine Dixon was trying to steer onto the path of righteousness, but anyway I have no idea really, but there was a sense of tragedy in the climactic scene, which involved the whippersnapper - so I would guess this was the sub-plot (I think it often was because they were always narrated "moral tales"). Those of a certain age will recall that in working class areas it was common practice once upon a time, to stick broken bottle shards into cement along the tops of backyard walls, to keep out the riff-raff and maybe the cats from next door.

Well, the final scene was the whippersnapper running towards such a wall, which he would endeavour to jump onto, grip the top of the wall, and hop over, and so avoid the geriatric copper. I think it was shot so that we overlooked the top of the wall and could see the idiot running towards us and so we knew exactly what was going to happen..... GULP .... and the clever camera work cut away se we were now behind him, from Dixon's pov, as he shouted the warning but was ignored as the young man leapt, and so we saw him in our minds eye - sort of hung on the wall like a criminal Christ - impaled through the palms as we imagined - and he either slipped down or was lifted off..... I forget which. I was probably running out the room by then and reminding myself to always look before I leapt, next time I was playing out.

Nowadays of course Dixon would end the show by telling us how many thousands the poor young man had received in compensation from the house-holder, who was due to be released from the Scrubs the year after next.....

The same scene scarred me too. I remembered the scene for years and thought of it whenever I passed walls studded with broken bottles.

Another from about the same time that frightened me witless was from one of the friday 9pm ITV shows ( The Liars, Mr Rose maybe but probably something hard edged) where a couple of thugs threaten a young man by pulling his hand towards a bacon slicer and threatening to use it on him. I still cringe when I hear the sound of bacon going through a slicer.

[SilverTyne]

Just on a side note, a former police station converted to a pub in Leeds was named in honour of the TV series.

http://www.pubutopia.com/pubs/L/Leed.../#.UAmrtaN_U7s

[Rangebuster]

Jack Warner was one of the nicest men you could get to meet. He was our guest on the pilot show of the MOVIE MEMORIES series which I devised and wrote for Anglia TV 1980-86. At that time he was travelling around the UK with a one man show about his life and career and was very upset that the BBC had kept so few Dixons. He found out when he asked if he could show a couple of clips as part of his show. In the Green Room he was full of funny stories and I particularly remember his kindness when the programme's director was telling a bunch of cronies how he considered MOVIE MEMORIES a time waster that was not worthy of him. As it was my first time in a TV studio I found his disparaging comments upsetting. Jack, on seeing this, called me over and said: "Don't listen to him. This is a great idea and it will be a popular series." I was invited to visit him at his home when I was next in London but shortly after that he was taken ill and I never did get to visit although we exchanged a couple of letters before his death.