LES GRANDS DETECTIVES (1975) – A few years back in Balladeer’s Blog’s Forgotten Television category, I reviewed every episode of the British television and radio series The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. That series presented mystery stories featuring fictional Victorian and Edwardian Age detectives in tales written during Holmes’ own time period.
Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, Dr. Thorndyke, Inspector Lipinzki, Miss Hagar Stanley and others were introduced to generations who had never heard of them. This French-West German co-production titled Les Grands Detectives presented mysteries being solved by similar detectives – including America’s Nick Carter, the one-time fictional giant who has since fallen down the memory hole. Each episode ran 52-55 minutes.
Les Grands Detectives episodes were as follows:
THE SIX DEAD MEN (April 21st, 1975)
The Detective: Inspector Wenceslas Woroboyioetschik, known as Inspector Wens for short. This detective was created by Belgian writer Stanislas-Andre Steeman. Wens was introduced in short stories during the 1920s and also appeared in novels beginning in the 1930s.
The Six Dead Men was the first Inspector Wens novel and was published in 1931. During World War One, six soldiers establish a short-term tontine: in ten years (five years in the novel) the survivors of the sextet – if any – will split the profits accrued in their venture. As the date of the cash-out draws near, some of the men start getting killed off, and Inspector Wens gets involved. Continue reading
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