The first series had aired in America each Wednesday, 8:30 to 9:00 pm (Eastern Standard Time), on CBS from 5 April to 13 September 1961. When American financing for a second series failed to materialise, the programme was cancelled. The name of the second unit director? John Schlesinger. Ralph Smart looked at them, hated them, and called up the second unit director and said "Look, these are terrible, you'll never be a film director," and then he fired him. shot some location and background stuff and sent the dailies back to the editing room at Elstree. The second unit director on the pilot, according to Clemens: And obviously the location stuck in Patrick McGoohan's mind, because that's where he shot his television series The Prisoner much later. The pilot I wrote was called "View from the Villa" and it was set in Italy, but the production manager set the shoot on location in Portmeirion, which looked like Italy but which was much closer. The pilot was written by Brian Clemens, who later co-created The Avengers. In keeping with the episodic format of such series in the 1960s, there are no ongoing story arcs and there is no reference made to Drake's NATO adventures in the later M9 episodes. Other than the largely nominal change of employer and nationality, Drake's mandate remains the same: "to undertake missions involving national and global security". These were also filmed in black and white. His nationality became British, and he was an agent working for a secret British government department, called M9 (analogous to Secret Intelligence Service), though his Mid-Atlantic English accent persists for the first few episodes in production. or NATO or both.įor the second and third series which aired several years after the first, the episode's length was extended to 48–49 minutes and Drake underwent retconning. Many of Drake's cases involved aiding democracy in foreign countries, and he was also called upon to solve murders and crimes affecting the interests of either the U.S. In episode 9, "The Sanctuary", Drake declares he is an Irish-American.ĭrake is sometimes at odds with his superiors about the ethics of the missions. The first series of 39 episodes ran to 24–25 minutes each and portrayed John Drake as working for a Washington, D.C.-based intelligence organization, apparently on behalf of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), whose assignments frequently took him to Africa, Latin America, and the Far East.
The line "NATO also has its own" is not always present. A messy job? Well that's when they usually call on me or someone like me. America, CIA France, Deuxième Bureau England, MI5. Plotline Įvery government has its secret service branch. A key difference from Bond traces to the family-oriented star's preferences: no firearms (with a few rare exceptions, such as episode 26, "The Journey Ends Halfway") and no outright seduction of female co-stars (though Drake did engage in low-key romance in a few episodes). This evolved into Danger Man.Īfter Patrick McGoohan was cast, he also affected character development. Like James Bond, the main character is a globetrotting British spy (although one who works for NATO rather than MI6), who cleverly extricates himself from life-threatening situations and introduces himself as "Drake.John Drake." įleming was replaced by Ian Stuart Black, and a new format/character initially called "Lone Wolf" was developed. Ian Fleming was brought in to collaborate on series development, but left before development was complete. Grade was looking for formats that could be exported. The idea for Danger Man originated with Ralph Smart an associate of Lew Grade, head of ITC Entertainment.
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