The Gun-Runners

DVD, The Champions (The Gun-Runners) (2)

The penultimate episode on the original DVD release was also the second episode to be filmed, marking the longest difference between filming and its position in the viewing order, though I have no idea how close the DVD is to the original order and the series may have been shown in just about any order in different parts of the country on original broadcast, so apart from 'The Beginning' needing to be at the beginning, and 'The Interrogation' working better after the episodes from which the flashback clips were taken, there isn't a definitive viewing order (indeed, the Special Edition DVD release that came later had a mostly different listing), because like most TV series' of the time it was designed to be viewed as a one-off on a week to week basis. But it meant that I was scrutinising the performances of the main cast to see if they came across differently than in later stories when they'd had a chance to become used to whom they were playing. I have to say that they seem to have slipped quite easily into the roles - while 'The Dark Island,' the first episode shot, may show some nerves in evidence from slight over-acting, I don't think I'd have picked this one out in the same way. Partly this is down to the characters not really changing over the course of the series and so they were right there on the page. If anything, they're a little lighter around each other, sharing knowing grins, and the humorous attitude is slightly exaggerated perhaps compared with other episodes. But mainly they seem to be having a good time.

One thing that could mark the episode out as an early production is in how they spare nothing in telling the story. On viewing it this time I felt it was a little untidy with them splitting up, then meeting up, with Sharron arriving late to Tremayne's briefing, and when the mission's not over, finding them hanging around waiting to hear in his office later on, combined with a multitude of characters of good, bad, and indifferent qualities. It may just have been an episode that wasn't good for keeping track of everything in order to write a review. I've sometimes found that: occasionally an episode of something will be more interesting than previous viewings simply because I'm paying more attention and have more to discuss, and on the other side, a good episode might not be as satisfying from the perspective of writing about it, which can colour my perception. I used to feel this episode one of the better ones, but although it has its points, it also was quite up and down. Something that did work are the characterisations, not just of the main cast, but of the guests - the Burmese Police Captain, for example, is very realistic in his proud attitude to Craig when the Nemesis agent arrives to investigate the murder of a police detachment and the thieving of a Second World War Japanese arms cache that had been located. It seems much more true to how a foreign authority would look on Nemesis butting in as if the domestic powers couldn't handle it themselves.

In this case, they couldn't, which is why it's essential that Nemesis be tied to no particular country or power, but is an international organisation. We've never really been given that detailed an explanation of it, but it's obvious from the headquarters being situated in Geneva, Switzerland, the home of neutrality, that it was designed to be just that: a neutral force that has the experience and training to neutralise any threat. The Captain came across as a real man, partly thanks to his show of dissatisfaction with Craig (who isn't really the most diplomatic, but manages to exude a calm and authoritative air that brooks no argument - he's there to do a job and he's going to do it), but also in the subtlety of his ways. He puts up with Craig's request to use his office for a private questioning of Nadkarni (who I at first thought was called 'Ned Carney'!), and though proud, doesn't stand on his position as a corrupt official might. At the same time you can see that corruption is portrayed as a part of Burmese life at this time - the Captain wryly suggests it would have made their job easier if Kunyaka's orphaned girl had succeeded in her assassination attempt on arms dealer Hartington's life, though Craig reminds him that they need to find the weapons, not just deal with Hartington. The man ends up dealing with himself anyway.

I'm not saying the Captain would really prefer murder to be committed, even if it made his job easier, but there was an element of truth in what he said, even though it was spoken lightly and the actor played it as if he was joking, while also making a point. The real corruption comes from the clerk at the exports and licensing office, who allows Hartington's contact, Schroeder, and his representative, Guido Selvameni, to pass through their export licence for 'machine parts' without any hassle when Guido drops him a bribe. So there's crooked stuff going on. That may be because this is one of those stories that features a lot of villains: Hartington is the main one, the Mr. Big at the top, then he has his personal muscle, Filmer, largely the strong and silent type; Guido, a man he doesn't entirely approve of, and the kind to kill in cold blood without a care (as we see when he takes out Schroeder); Schroeder himself, of Rangoon Chemicals, who is on the outskirts, and signs his own death warrant as soon as he agrees to go into business with them. And in the Central African country of Ngano (which I assume is a fabrication, unless it had changed its name since the 1960s, which is also possible), where the weapons are destined, a rebel leader called Bandani is the source of civil war to which Hartington sells his merchandise. That's not to mention Nadkarni, who was on the inside at the police station, but was in the pay of Hartington, so he was the most corrupt of the lot.

As I said, the episode had everything thrown into it while they still had the budget and we get a globe-trotting adventure that takes in Geneva, Brussels, Rangoon and Ngano, features location shooting such as Craig walking off a plane (Pan American yet again!), and the Belgian police at the Belgique Swallows Aero Club, an actual airfield with planes and everything! You've got back projection used for Craig being tailed in Rangoon, continual use of their powers in various ways (sometimes the best being the casual showing off between the trio!), a number of sets, including the return of the plane, though only the cockpit is used, and the trio getting their moments, both independently and together. They use greens sets to simulate the jungle, and even have some outside shooting as you can see the wind blowing the plants about in some scenes, and they even had a real chimpanzee at one point, as well as stock footage of giraffes back projected on the champions, to their delight. They even make the explosion of the weapons cache back projection behind the champions and the jungle set. Like 'The Dark Island' there's a good mix. I suppose I just found the strange way of putting them together and moving them apart a few times to be distracting - for example, they all go to Burma, but Craig is the only official face, while Richard and Sharron check out Hartington's club as tourists. I felt Kunyaka's daughter could have played a bigger role rather than just one murder attempt, but once we hear who she is and see Nadkarni interviewing her she's out of it.

The sheer amount of their abilities they use in the mission was more than some other collections of episodes. There's a lot of their 'silent' communication power where they can talk to each other over distance or not allow anyone else to hear: Craig summons Sharron to the balcony outside her room when he knows he's being followed as he doesn't want to alert anyone to the fact he's got contacts; he also warns Sharron when they're in Africa and she's inside the only tent, what the plan is and to be ready. A little later, Richard lets her know it's time to act in the same way, and she creates a diversion to lead the soldiers away from the arms cache, her main starring role. She gets a much better one in the post credits sequence, exclusively devoted to her this time: she's on a night out and comes into the street to find her small car's been tightly boxed in. A couple of drunken Frenchmen offer their assistance in pushing the vehicle out sideways, but make no progress, so she walks round the other side and drags it out with one hand, the helpers falling into a puddle in the gutter! It's simple, but very effective, and what makes it even better is that unlike many of these scenes which were completely unconnected from the actual episode, it carries on directly from this - she walks into Tremayne's office in the same evening dress and apologises for the delay. The most fun example of their skill is when they're sitting around in Tremayne's office and Richard chucks his empty cup into the dead centre of the waste bin, then like Robin Hood splitting the arrow in the bullseye, Sharron throws hers to land inside his, and just to show off, Craig flicks his from a reclining position to get it on top of both!

Their advanced hearing is something else that proves fruitful on several occasions. Richard hears Nadkarni approach his and Sharron's table at Hartington's so he's able to stand up and jostle him at exactly the right moment, removing his wallet so Sharron can find out who this lackey is, before Richard gives it back to him. In the same scene, Sharron hears the cock of Kunyaka's daughter's Beretta and is able to fling a tray with incredible precision, accuracy and speed so it ruins her aim and prevents Hartington's murder, and it all happens to fast that no one knows quite what happened - that's my favourite display of ability in the episode. Craig uses his hearing to be drawn to the tearful Kunyaka daughter in a closed room in the police station, filling in more of the puzzle. It's not done with twinkly music, so I don't know if the champions could hear Bandani's rebel soldiers in the jungle from their powers or because of them making too much noise, but that's certainly a contender, just as Craig is well aware of the tail he's picked up in Rangoon. Richard's photographic recall is used to remember the details of Schroeder's export licence when he went there pretending to be looking up the address of an old friend, after he's been alerted to Schroeder's death in the paper. But they aren't invulnerable, as we know, and all Craig's abilities can't prevent him from falling prey to a trap with Filmer dropping a heavy crate on him at the warehouse where Hartington agrees to meet him. This activates both Sharron and Richard's special sense and they know their colleague is in pain.

So one of the champions was captured, there's an original idea. It would have made more sense to note which episodes someone didn't get captured, but it wouldn't quite be a complete episode without it! I like the little touch of the cards left on the table as Richard and Sharron rush from their room: two Kings and a Queen, a visual reminder of the trio's greatness and necessity of being in a pack, maybe? In 'The Dark Island' Richard had to hang from a rafter to kick a door in, and this time Craig does the same, only it's a trapdoor in the ceiling (perhaps the same set later used in 'The Mission' where Craig's hand breaks through the plaster ceiling of a cell Richard's been locked into?). Sadly we don't get to see he and Richard jointly smashing in a door, but in a funny moment, Richard comes crashing through the door of his prison mere seconds after Craig's got himself out! In Africa Richard moves super fast to take out the guard on watch after they've all been captured again by Hartington's allies, Bandani's soldiers, so he and Craig can break into the wooden outbuilding containing the arms (probably the exact same set Richard broke out of in 'The Dark Island' considering that was the previous one filmed and they liked to reuse sets). Craig is able to pull out the grate blocking the window in the time it takes Richard to find a stick for leverage. After they've done all that, Craig kicks the shed door down to get out, and that marks the end of their powers for the episode.

They make a comment about the revolution having to be fought with bows and arrows now, before making their way off into the jungle, their mission complete. I tend to prefer the chance for Tremayne to have a few words at the end, but there weren't any hanging threads, it was all done and dusted - he got in a funny moment at the beginning when he tells Sharron Richard will fill her in, she asks questions and then he realises to his irritation he's started to give the briefing again! He also had another scene later when the champions are waiting to hear on developments (I felt the Burmese Captain took on his role somewhat as he asks questions of Sharron and Richard in his office, but they just hurry out the door without giving him a straight answer!). It wasn't like they were there to actually stop the revolution, just prevent the arms being used. They would have wanted to bring in Hartington to face the music, but he takes care of himself, stupidly attempting to rush in and arrest the progress of the gunpowder that was rapidly burning towards the cache, before it all goes up and takes him with it. As the Police Captain might have said, it saved them a job of having to take him back! I thought Bandani's soldiers could have simply gone into the hut and stamped out the gunpowder when they confront Craig and Richard, and it would have made for a tense fight if they'd had to go through a load of soldiers before they could get out of the blast area, the camera flicking back to the fizzling gunpowder every so often, then a last second dash into the jungle. Instead, the cowardly soldiers see what's happening, fly into a panic and scarper, suggesting Bandani's revolution wasn't going to be very successful.

A few sets looked familiar - I mentioned the plane cockpit, and there's also Sharron's hotel room in Rangoon with its shuttered window that had been used a few times before. The warehouse where Schroeder was shot could have been the same place used to store the machines in 'The Invisible Man,' and certainly the dock area had been seen before. The remains of the crashed plane would most likely have been reused for the champions' own plane crash in 'The Beginning.' There's a different angle on Tremayne's office as we're looking over towards his agents and the main entrance, then we see him enter through the door to the right of that, which I think housed his bedroom as we saw in 'The Gilded Cage.' They certainly reused the footage of Craig exiting the Pan Am plane before in 'The Interrogation,' or more precisely, used it again, as this episode was filmed first. It helped the scale of the episode to see actual scenes filmed at an airfield, which was where the Brussels police noticed the fake markings that were washed off by the downpour to reveal the Central Asian Airways identification that had been painted over with European markings. I'm not quite sure what the police car thought it could do when it set its siren blaring and drove off at top speed as if it was going to intercept the taxiing plane!

Another episode that had a large cast, meaning a number of speaking roles went uncredited. The biggest one was Anthony Chinn - just as 'The Dark Island' featured a connection to my favourite TV series, 'DS9,' by having an uncredited Nick Tate in a small role (he was also in 'TNG'), Chinn played an important role in the British series, 'BUGS,' a 1990s heir to the kind of ITC dramas that 'The Champions' was part of. He played Kunyaka in the teaser, along with his police detachment, at least one other of whom had lines. He was also uncredited in 'The Beginning' so he didn't have much joy with this series, it seems! Another actor who had more success was Eric Young (nothing to do with the American wrestler!), this time as the Police Captain, but was also in 'The Beginning' and credited on both episodes. A third actor to appear in another episode was David Lodge who went on to be recalled for 'The Night People,' playing the heavy, Filmer, in this one. Hartington was the main villain and he got the distinction of being among a select few to share his end credit on the same page as the main cast. The only credit with a bit of mystery to it was the 'Ministry Clerk' - I would assume it was the exports licence guy as he had the most screen time, but it could almost have been the African official in Ngano. Along with Chinn and his men going uncredited, Guido's accomplices are also uncredited, though they didn't have lines, nor are the Frenchmen from the post credits, Kunyaka's daughter, the official checking off the plane in Rangoon, who may have been Indian, the two Belgian policemen and Bandani, though he never spoke.

If I wasn't as enamoured with the episode on this occasion, it was still a step in the right direction compared with the previous few episodes. I hope the finale lives up to my impressions of it as being a high to end on, but whatever the case, it's been a joy to revisit this series again after so many years, and really get to know it in detail, which is one of the benefits writing reviews, or more specifically, commentary.

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