Callan: The Monochrome Years DVD, 1969

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MovieMail's Review

Edward Woodward stars as a moody government assassin in this excellent TV espionage drama that gave him his breakthrough. Julian Upton takes a look.

The public’s appetite for espionage adventure in the midst of sixties Bondmania was such that its more uncompromising subgenre, the ‘gritty spy drama’, was as popular as the antics of 007. The TV series Callan followed on the heels of big screen adventures such as The Ipcress File and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, but it has outlived its ‘fashionable’ trappings, as this four-disc set, comprising all the surviving episodes from the first two ABC series (1967-69), shows. The scripts are tight and clever and the acting is generally first rate, but it is the late Edward Woodward’s performance as the aggressive but oddly vulnerable government assassin David Callan, a man whose steel-eyed professionalism is tempered with frustration and, sometimes, sheer desperation, that really made the series stand out. The low-definition, black and white videotaping may be a mark of Callan’s antiquity, but Woodward’s rage and sorrow still feels raw and immediate. The box set contains the original and rarely-seen pilot for the series, A Magnum for Schneider.

Julian Upton on 27th January 2010
View all 133 of Julian Upton's reviews

Film Information

Director - Tony Robertson

Produced - 1969

Main Language - English

Countries & Regions - British Film

Cast - Edward Woodward, Anthony Valentine

DVD Details

Certificate:	12	Publisher:	Network	Region:	2
Length:	525 mins	Aspect:	4:3	Cat No:	7953231
Format:	DVD B&W

DVD Extras

4 discs

Film Description

Edward Woodward gives an electrifying performance as a reluctant professional killer working for British Intelligence. Callan became a national phenomenon in the late 1960s, making Woodward one of the highest profile actors on television and paving the way to his eventual career in America on shows like The Equalizer.

Created by James Mitchell (When the Boat Comes In) and exploring the dingy, twilight world of the professional spy, Callan was the antithesis of James Bond (back in the days of Connery and Moore) and presented, until that point, television's most realistic portrayal of government espionage.

This set contains the original Armchair Theatre pilot play, A Magnum for Schneider, along with all the remaining black and white episodes from series one and two - unseen in nearly forty years and available on any format for the first time.