Department S (TV Series) Who Plays the Dummy? (1969) User Reviews

A good Dept. S adventure

[shakspryn · 8/10 · 18 June 2017]

I like this episode of the series because all three of our main trio get their moments to excel. Sometimes in this series, as in The Champions by the same company, ITC, the female member of the team does not get much to do.

For this outing, our team is working in Spain, and we get some nice countryside exteriors. Given the budget, it's almost certainly English countryside doubling for Spanish, but it looks good.

One of the guest stars is George Pastell, one of those character actors for whom you think, "where have I seen this guy before?" Looking him up, he played the train conductor in the Bond film, "From Russia with Love," so many will find him familiar from that role.

In this episode, we get a lot of action. The pacing of the episode is good and it never drags. A general note: in The Avengers, the plots were often very outlandish, even fantastical; in Dept. S., the plots are much more credible, which I think a plus.

A good episode with the usual Department S quirks

[veebee2 · 9/10 · 22 February 2023]

Department S is a high-level unit of Interpol, and is handed cases which have mystified government police departments. In this case, a car crashes in rural Spain and the driver turns out to be a tailor's dummy - wearing an Old Etonian tie. This McGuffin sets the scene for another serving of ITC action and intrigue (see also: The Saint, The Baron, The Champions, The Persuaders!, Danger Man, etc.).

Re-watching the programmes over 50 years later (how did that happen?!), they can still provide good entertainment if you don't take them seriously.

Things which bring a smile today are cars driving through the English countryside on the wrong side of the road to show we are really in France or Spain, body doubles used in fight scenes and second-unit work which look nothing like their originals, and in this episode a white Jaguar being driven over a cliff and smashing onto the rocks below. This was a standard item in the ITC film library (along with grainy establishing shots of Paris or Lisbon which cut to a studio set with a painted backdrop outside the window) and it was a point of honour among scriptwriters to try to write it into an episode. In this adventure we're even treated to a corner of a Spanish field which seems identical in two different locations.

Well, who needs culture? The programmes are solidly made, entertaining, more or less stand the test of time - and Rosemary Nicols is a pip!