The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre

I remember my dad watching The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre on Australian TV in the 1960s along with the Perry Mason series. I also saw some installments on the big screen at the cinema as a second feature during the 1960s. Excellent production values, sets, top actors and sharp cinema quality black and white photography. Very good scripts with each episode having a good twist in the tail. The series is currently being repeated on early morning free to air TV in Australia. Still stands up as a good mystery anthology series and well worth a view.

The Edgar Wallace mysteries were originally cinema second features, supporting the big films - then were sold to television much later. So now they are often thought of as a TV series.

Whatever they are, they are sometimes excellent, sometimes routine, the same as any other long running series. What they do have are interesting casts - many big names at the start of their careers such as Barry Foster, Michael Caine, Patrick Allen, Harry H Corbett. There is also a fabulous theme tune Man of Mystery written by Ron Goodwin and performed by The Shadows.

These mysteries are always watchable and as they run less than an hour they have both time to develop plot and characters, and not to outstay their welcome.

The Edgar Wallace mysteries series of TV programs shot by Merton Park films was much in the vein of the classic 'B' movies of the time.

That said, they are first class productions with many new actors coming through into the big time that would go on to greater things in the cast.

Michael Caine, John Thaw and many others would start here and become well known later in the decade and beyond.

The films fit a lot in to the hour duration and they are well worth watching for all the background scenery too, giving us a view of the nation at the time, now long gone. The scripts are well written and thought out.

Watch the background scenes and interior shots of the buildings to see how much these have changed in the last 60 years!

At the time of filming, the death penalty was still in force and it is surprising that like in real life, did not seem the deterrent that it should have been - reflected in the high body count overall in these films overall!

The catchy theme tune 'Man of mystery by Michael Carr, recorded by the Shadows in 1960, is used as the theme music for the films, although not performed by the Shadows and there are about 4 different versions of the music, the 3 guitar based ones are more in the Shadows style than the first.

You'll notice once you've seen a few of the films a lot of the same cars appearing in later episodes!

The films convey a Britain in the first modern decade after WW2, that would go on to change British society perhaps more than any since.

A great bit of nostalgia and well worth watching.

Not originally meant as a TV series, The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre was a series of B movies, the movies played second in a double feature. In this case the movies were all based on books by Edgar Wallace (surprise, surprise!).

The movies are all murder mysteries and generally involve your standard "murder committed (maybe with a bit of scene setting) - cops arrive and investigate - detective solves case" formula. There are a few exceptions (one of the best episodes has an insurance investigator as the detective).

The plots are pretty good. The murderer is generally not that predictable and there is a fair amount of intrigue, twists and turns. Performances are solid, even for minor characters, and the feel of the movies is one of quality.

However, the character engagement is quite limited. This isn't Poirot: there's no colourful recurring central character. Nearly every movie has a different bunch of characters, including the lead detective, and it's all straightforward, by-the-book policework. There's very little in the way of sub-plots or humour: it's all pretty dour.

Overall: interesting enough, but not brilliant.

Absolutely brilliant programme, watched many times and always enjoy, so much better imagination than a lot of rubbish on tv now.