Frank Marker
Created by Roger Marshall & Anthony Marriott

Forget drop dead cool two-fisted square-jawed American TV eyes with their shiny sports cars and bikinied secretaries -- FRANK MARKER was the real deal, about as hip as a cup of tea. He was also one of the greatest of all the television eyes, right up there with Jim Rockford, Peter Gunn and Harry O.

Public Eye was a much-beloved British television series featuring Alfred Burke as Marker, a rather scruffy, down at the heels middle-aged London private eye whose inherent decency never seemed to thwart the bad luck that constantly plagued him.

Poor Frank. It wasn't enough he worked out of a dingy little office, that he was a desperately lonely man, or that neither the criminals or police he was frequently in contact with completely trusted him -- it seemed he was always being shuffled from one place to another. From London, he moved to Birmingham, where he had an office over a lumberyard, and finally, in the last episode of the third season, "Cross That Palm When We Come To It," he was arrested and sent to prison for two and a half years for being in possession of stolen jewellery. Of course, he wasn't guilty, but that didn't seem to matter.

Upon his eventual release from prison (the beginning of season four), Frank moved to Brighton. He also discovered, that while he was up the river, that there had been some drastic changes behind the scenes --- the show's original production company, ABC, had merged with Associated-Rediffusion to form Thames Productions, and several changes were made to the show.

Besides the change of location to Brighton (and later, Windsor), several other actors joined the cast. The loner private inquiry agent was suddenly not so alone -- he was frequently joined by Mrs. Helen Mortimer, his landlady, Jim Hull, his probation officer, and Detective Inspector Percy Firbank, a police contact who eventually became a true rarity in Marker's world -- a friend.

The show is much praised for its solid writing and character-driven plots, its gritty but down-to-earth vibe, and particularly, the performance of Alfred Burke, who managed to capture Marker's innate integrity and goodness.

UNDER OATH

• "By the end of the final season in 1975, Public Eye had successfully delivered to the viewers a diverse range of quality stories which, whilst covering a wide range of subjects, still succeeded in presenting possibly the most 'realistic' depiction of the shadowy, seedy, morally ambiguous world which Frank Marker inhabited. With a tremendously convincing and sustained central performance from Alfred Burke, Public Eye was a series of genuine dramatic depth and emotional power.
  .
  The great crime here is that so much of the series early triumphs are lost to television posterity. An even greater crime is that the episodes that do survive have yet to be widely and comprehensively rebroadcast to a modern audience."
  -- Television Heaven

TELEVISION

• PUBLIC EYE
  (1965-68, ABC)
  41 60-minute episodes (28 black and white, 13 in colour)
  Created by Roger Marshall & Anthony Marriott
  Writers: Roger Marshall, Julian Bond, Robert Banks Stewart, Robert Holmes
  Directors: Don Leaver, Kim Jonathan Alwyn, Guy Verney, Quentin Lawrence, Douglas Camfield
  Producers: Richard Bates, Kim Mills, Michael Chapman
  Executive Producers: Lloyd Shirley, Robert Love
  Music by Robert Earley
  Starring Alfred Burke as FRANK MARKER
  

• Series One
• "All For A Couple Of Ponies" (January 23, 1965)
• "Nobody Kills Santa Claus" (January 30, 1965)
• "They Go Off In The End - Like Fruit" (February 6, 1965)
• "Dig You Later" (February 13, 1965)
• "I Went To Borrow A Pencil And Look What I Found" (February 20, 1965)
• "But The Joneses Never Get Letters" (February 27, 1965)
• "A Harsh World For Zealots" (March 6, 1965)
• ""And A Very Fine Fiddle Has He" (March 13, 1965)
• "My Life - That's A Marriage" (March 20, 1965)
• "You Think It'll Be Marvellous - But It's Always A Rabbit" (March 27,1965)
• "Protection Is A Man's Best Friend" (April 3, 1965)
• "The Morning Wasn't So Hot" (April 10, 1965)
• "You Should Hear Me Eat Soup" (April 17, 1965)
• "You Have To Draw the Line Somewhere" (April 24, 1965)
• "Have It On The House" (May 1, 1965)
  .
• Series Two
• "All The Black Dresses She Wants" (July 2, 1966)
• "Don't Forget You're Mine" (July 9, 1966)
• "I Could Set It To Music" (July 16, 1966)
• "It's A Terrible Way To Be" (July 23, 1966)
• "You Can Keep The Medal" (July 30, 1966)
• "You're Not Cinderella, Are You?" (August 6, 1966)
• "Works With Chess, Not With Life" (August 13, 1966)
• "It Had To Be A Mouse" (August 20, 1966)
• "Tell Me About The Crab" (August 27, 1966)
• "No, No, Nothing Like That" (September 3, 1966)
• "There Are More Things In Heaven And Earth" (September 10, 1966)
• "Twenty Pound Of Heart And Muscle" (September 17, 1966)
• "What's The Matter? Can't You Take A Sick Joke" (September 24 1966
  .
• Series Three
• "If This Is Lucky, I'd Rather Be Jonah" (January 20, 1968)
• "But What Good Will The Truth Do?" (January 27, 1968)
• "Memories Of Meg" (February 3, 1968)
• "Have Mud, Will Throw" (February 10, 1968)
• "But They Always Come Back For Tea" (February 17, 1968)
• "Mercury In An Off-White Mac" (February 24, 1968)
• "Strictly Private And Confidential" (March 2, 1968)
• "Honesty Is The Best Policy - But Who Can Afford The Premiums?" (March 9, 1968)
• "The Bromsgrove Venus" (March 16, 1968)
• "It Must Be The Architecture - Can't Be The Climate" (March 23, 1968)
• "It's Learning About The Lies That Hurts" (March 30, 1968)
• "There's No Future In Monkey Business" (April 6, 1968)
• "Cross That Palm When We Come To It" (April 13, 1968)
  

• PUBLIC EYE
  (1969-75, Thames Television)
  46 60-minute episodes
  Created by Roger Marshall & Anthony Marriott
  Writers: Roger Marshall, Philip Broadley, Michael Chapman, Douglas Livingstone, Trevor Preston, John Kershaw, Richard Harris, James Doran, Peter Hill, Brian Finch, David Ambrose
  Directors: Dennis Vance, Jonathan Alwyn, Guy Verney, Douglas Camfield, Don Leaver
  Music by Robert Earley
  Starring Alfred Burke as FRANK MARKER
  Also starring Ray Smith as Detective Inspector Firbank 
  Peter Childs as Ron Gash
  and Pauline Delany as Helen Mortimer 
  

• Series One
• "Welcome to Brighton?" (July 30, 1969)
• "Divide and Conquer" (August 6, 1969)
• "Paid in Full" (August 13, 1969)
• "My Life's My Own" (August 20, 1969)
• "Case for the Defence" (August 27, 1969)
• "The Comedians Graveyard" (September 3, 1969)
• "A Fixed Address" (September 10, 1969)
  .
• Series Two
• "A Mug Named Frank" (July 14, 1971)
• "Well - There was This Girl, You See..." (July 14, 1971)
• "Slip Home in the Dark" (July 21, 1971)
• "I Always Wanted a Swimming Pool" (July 28, 1971)
• "Beater and the Game" (August 4, 1971)
• "Come into the Garden, Rose" (August 11, 1971)
• "When You've Paid the Bill, You're None the Wiser" (August 18 1971)
• "Who Wants to Be Told Bad News?" (August 25, 1971)
• "The Man Who Didn't Eat Sweets" (September 1, 1971)
• "Ward of Court" (September 8, 1971)
• "Transatlantic Cousins" (September 15, 1971)
• "Shades of White" (September 22, 1971)
• "John VII, Verse 24" (September 29, 1971)
  .
• Series Three
• "Bankrupt" (November 8, 1972)
• "Girl in Blue" (November 15, 1972)
• "Many a Slip" (November 29, 1972)
• "Mrs Podmore's Cat" (December 6, 1972)
• "The Man Who Said Sorry" (December 13,1972)
• "Horse and Carriage" (December 20, 1972)
• "A Family Affair" (January 3, 1973)
• "The Golden Boy Philip Broadley" (January 10, 1973)
• "The Windsor Royal" (January 17, 1973)
• "It's A Woman's Privilege" (January 24, 1973)
• "Home And Away" (January 31, 1973)
• "Egg and Cress Sandwiches" (February 7, 1973)
• "The Trouble with Jenny" (February 14, 1973)
  .
• Series Four
• "Nobody Wants To Know" (January 6, 1975)
• "How About A Cup Of Tea?" (January 13, 1975)
• "How About It, Frank?" (January 20, 1975)
• "They All Sound Simple At First" (January 27, 1975)
• "Fall Guy" (February 3, 1975)
• "What's To Become Of Us?" (February 10, 1975)
• "Hard Times" (February 17, 1975)
• "No Orchids For Marker" (February 24, 1975)
• "The Fatted Calf" (March 3, 1975)
• "Lifer" (March 10, 1975)
• "Take No For An Answer" (March 17, 1975)
• "Fit of Conscience" (March 24, 1975)
• "Unlucky for Some" (April 7, 1975

NOVELIZATION

• Marker Calls the Tune (1968, by Anthony Marriot)
• Cross That Palm When I Come to It (1974; by Audley Southcott)

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.