THE KNIGHTS OF THE SKY aka The Knights of Heaven aka The Aeronauts. This 1967-1970 French series is the Forgotten Television subject this time around. The series ran for 39 episodes – 3 seasons of 13 episodes each. Episodes filled a half-hour timeslot with commercials.
Les Chevaliers du Ciel, to use the program’s French title, starred Jacques Santi and Christian Marin as Michel Tanguy and Ernest Laverdure, respectively. The pair were fighter pilots who flew mostly in Mirage aircraft and had a series of espionage and military escapades in addition to lots of encounters with attractive ladies.
The dynamic of their relationship is that Tanguy is the serious man of action and a Casanova with women, while Laverdure, though capable in a fight and as a pilot, is the comical partner whose antics are often undignified. I like to think of Christian Marin as the French Peter Davison, so think of his character Ernest Laverdure as Davison’s hapless Tristan on All Creatures Great and Small. Continue reading
THE FLASHING BLADE (1967) – This 13-episode French adventure series was later dubbed – a bit clumsily – into English. Each English-dubbed episode was in color and filled a half-hour time slot with commercials. The French title was actually The Tempestuous Knight or The Stormy Knight but was changed to The Flashing Blade for the English dubs. The original French airings were in four 75-minute episodes.
FRANCOIS, THE CHEVALIER DE RECCI (Robert Etcheverry) – The hero of the story. He and his sidekick Guillot (Jacques Balutin) reach the Fort of Casale, which is under siege by the Spanish forces in the alps near Savoy and Monferrato. (Some reviews of the show say the castle is on the border between France and Spain, but I believe that mistake comes from the reviewers casually noting that the war is between French and Spanish forces and just assuming that meant the war was being fought along their national borders.) 
The castle garrison’s French commander, Thoiras (Gilles Pelletier), is a mopey, less than inspirational leader and our fiery hero Francois clashes with him over his lethargy and lack of initiative. Soon, de Recci disobeys a direct order from Thoiras by raiding the Spanish forces for supplies. 
HOLLYWOOD (1980) – A week ago Balladeer’s Blog took a look at the classic documentaries 
THE PIONEERS – A look at the era when movie production was predominantly in New York and New Jersey, until expenses and encroachments by organized crime forced the industry to migrate to Hollywood, CA, a place then known mostly for its lemon groves. Featuring footage from The Great Train Robbery (1903) on up through films from the mid-teens and the 1920s like Ben-Hur (1925), The Black Pirate (1926), The Fire Brigade (1927) and The Wind (1928). 
SINGLE BEDS AND DOUBLE STANDARDS – Stories from the raucous, hard-partying years of Hollywood’s silent movie era. As 
CARRY ON CHRISTMAS (1969) – Balladeer’s Blog’s 14th Annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon continues with this 50-minute British television version of the Carol starring most of the Carry On regulars. The Carry On movies were long before my time and weren’t my kind of humor for the most part. (I’m more of a Monty Python, Blackadder, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Absolutely Fabulous sort of guy.) 
THANKSGIVING IS ALMOST HERE! ONE OF THE GREATEST HOLIDAYS OF THE YEAR! In the midst of the travails that inevitably complicate our lives it’s a great time for taking stock of the positives that we can find. 
HOME aka Future Soap (1968) – This science fiction drama set hundreds of years in the future first aired on January 19th, 1968 on American Public Broadcasting’s N.E.T. Playhouse. Home is a 90-minute piece about the threat of overpopulation – and the excuses that threat gives the government to impose authoritarian conditions on the populace – set among a honeycomb of claustrophobic rooms in which citizens of the future must spend their lives due to the dictates of the government. 
Food is in pill form, rituals praising the government are required and “happy drugs” must be consumed daily in order to keep the populace in line. When a couple is able to obtain permission to have a child they must wait until someone in their communal room dies. 
CITY BENEATH THE SEA (1962) – For starters, this is NOT the 1970s movie nor the 1950s movie of this title. This City Beneath the Sea is a seven-part television serial from Great Britain. In the past Balladeer’s Blog has covered similar British tv serials like the original Quatermass adventures, Pathfinders in Space and its sequels, in addition to The Trollenberg Terror, plus Object Z and Object Z Returns. 
City Beneath the Sea stars Gerald Flood as reporter Mark Bannerman and Stewart Guidotti as his photographer Peter Blake. The villains are led by Germans who served in World War Two, like Denis Goacher as former U-Boat commander Kurt Swendler and Aubrey Morris as mad scientist Professor Ludwig Ziebrecken. 
RAFFERTY (1977) – Before House there was Rafferty! The great Patrick McGoohan, still praised for his multiple creative contributions to the 1967 series 
THE GROOVIE GOOLIES (1970) – This 16-episode cartoon series seemed like an appropriate subject for Halloween Month. In previous years, Balladeer’s Blog reviewed 
Other supporting characters at the castle called Horrible Hall were Mummy the mummy, plus Bone-Apart, the living skeleton in a Napoleon hat and epaulettes. Additional monsters and living pieces of furniture added to the cast and appeared intermittently. 
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes was a 1971-1973 British television series about London by Gaslight detectives from both the Victorian and Edwardian Ages. 
Episode: FIVE HUNDRED CARATS (February 5th, 1973) 
For the first time in this series we have a story set outside Great Britain, which I found to be a welcome change of pace. Leo Lipinzki (Barry Keegan) works as a Detective Inspector for the Cape Police, but technically the already wealthy and powerful De Beers Diamond Corporation is who he really answers to. 
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