Home
Episodes
Background
Production personnel
Locations
Stars of The Baron
Images
Vehicles
Other ITC series
Links

EPISODE FIVE: ENEMY OF THE STATE

Original UK transmission: 26th October 1966

Filmed:  December 1965

Screenplay by Dennis Spooner

Directed by Jeremy Summers

Synopsis: The Baron and Cordelia Winfield (Sue Lloyd) are in Eastern Europe at an art auction when Cordelia is suddenly taken prisoner by the authorities and accused of espionage. It seems that the world of antiques is not all as it seems, as compelling evidence seems to point to her being about to contact Ronald Bell (Richard Carpenter), a Western agent who has just been captured by the state and has confessed to being on the point of receiving funds through Cordelia and Mannering. In fact, the whole enterprise has indeed been a cover for Templeton-Green (Colin Gordon) to get the funds through to Bell, who has since been taken prisoner. At the last minute, however, a double agent known as Rishner (Brian Phelan) has found out about the capture, and thus has warned The Baron, stopping him from going to contact Bell at an agreed rendez-vous where the police would be waiting. However, Rishner has been too late to stop Cordelia, who is intercepted at the Koblinz Bar, where Bell is shot by the police, and she is arrested as a foreign agent. Having been knocked unconscious by Rishner, seemingly the only way to stop him from also suffering the same fate as Cordelia, the Baron finds himself at a British safe house with Templeton-Green and other embassy staff. However, he reveals that the British will not yet disclose what has happened: politics means that they will have to wait until she starts a trial, where an exchange for another agent may take place. These events, however, could take several years. Mannering, however, is not impressed, and makes for the police headquarters where Cordelia is being held, only to be immediately escorted towards the border by the police after only a brief meeting with her. However, he manages to force the car taking him out of the country to crash, and, getting his hands on another car, drives back to the safe house with one of the government officials in handcuffs as a prisoner. He then undertakes a daring plan to kidnap Head of Security Szoblik (Anton Diffring) and exchange him for Cordelia involving a banana, a level crossing, a Mercedes and a VW Beetle. Amazingly, despite having an informer working against him, the plan comes into fruition, and he and Cordelia are able to swim, literally, across the border in a hail of gunfire, thus escaping the country for good.

Direction:

Script:

Performances:

Cars/Sets/Locations:

General observations: Despite some laughably entitled stock footage, some rather bad special effects and some fairly poor acting by some minor members of the cast (particularly the man who hands his car over to the Baron as a favour for the glorious motherland), Enemy of the State is a fairly good episode. I had always thought of Jeremy Summers as one of the better ITC directors, and although he is no more than adequate here, the story certainly moves along with a certain degree of pace. What is unusual here is the large amount of location footage with the actual main unit on set (rather than the second unit), as witnessed by the fact that Steve Forrest does appear to have been there. These locations range from the studio water tank (apparently, which seems to have some sort of guard post by it) to a former railway station and a railway bridge near Harpenden, but none of them look massively out of place. This is also helped by a super variety of unusual cars, such as a Moskvich, a Saab, a Toyota and a Skoda, all of which would have been very rare in Britain in 1965. Again, the old studio backlot looks surprisingly good as an Eastern European town, even if the place itself does not even have a name this time. The stand-out performance is Anton Diffring as Szoblik, who is rather frightening when compared with some of the other Eastern European stock villains who were on television at the time. Not a bad overall effort, but there are better episodes.

Episode 1 Episode 16
Episode 2 Episode 17
Episode 3 Episode 18
Episode 4 Episode 19
Episode 5 Episode 20
Episode 6 Episode 21
Episode 7 Episode 22
Episode 8 Episode 23
Episode 9 Episode 24
Episode 10 Episode 25
Episode 11 Episode 26
Episode 12 Episode 27
Episode 13 Episode 28
Episode 14 Episode 29
Episode 15 Episode 30

"The Baron" Copyright 1966-67 ITC Entertainment

(This page copyright 2008 www.associated-british.co.uk)

itc@associated-british.co.uk