Episode 8, "The Sorcerer" is only an average entry, but above par for this series. Colonel March receives a queer complaint from murderous husband John Cusby (Robert Adair) who accuses his wife's psychoanalyst (Gerard Heinz) of being an evil 'witch doctor' plotting her suicidal demise. When the good doctor winds up stabbed to death in a locked room by a hatpin belonging to Mrs. Cusby (Eileen Erskine), the only other person present, Inspector Ames (Ewan Roberts) naturally arrests her as the culprit. Also figuring are the doctor's unstable wife (Lilly Kann) and his assistant, Dr. Brian Hayes (Phil Brown, later seen in "Present Tense"), who amusingly refers to himself as 'the sorcerer's apprentice.' The guilty party is fairly obvious but the reenactment of the crime makes for a diverting solution. Robert Adair died August 10, 1954, shortly after filming was completed (he had previously worked with Boris Karloff in 1935's "Bride of Frankenstein").
7 Reviews
acting over the top
bud_0308624 November 2019
Each of the guest actors either overplayed or underplayed their characters. All of them had strange, unrealistic behavior. The holocaust survivor was particularly overdoing her role. The culprit in the execution of the story was the writing.
Sit and watch for a spell
hte-trasme25 May 2010
I'd seen one episode of "Colonel March of Scotland Yard" before and decided to start over at the beginning with this one. Almost no time is wasted in "The Sorceror" in introducing characters and situations at length, but this does not turn out to be necessarily a bad thing as the little exposition that is dropped in provides all we need to understand.
Boris Karloff really throws himself into the role of the eccentric and childlike but brilliant Inspector March -- he moved to London to film this series. He makes March's idiosyncrasies seem more reasonable than they ought to somehow, carries the plot along with dignity, and is believable when he must be passionate. Ewan Roberts as his "Watson" figure from the yard is aggressively normal to Karloff's iconoclasm, which makes for a good contrast.
The plot of this one is agreeable strange, avoiding dullness with a psychoanalyst who infuriates patients by hardly saying anything and his traumatized Holocaust-survivor wife. It's also an interesting look at the fifties' society's fascination with psychiatry just as the public was starting to become informed about it. Despite this series' focus on the occult the solution to the mystery is fair in its broad outline at least and doesn't rely on knowledge of the supernatural, which is a good thing.
Boris Karloff really throws himself into the role of the eccentric and childlike but brilliant Inspector March -- he moved to London to film this series. He makes March's idiosyncrasies seem more reasonable than they ought to somehow, carries the plot along with dignity, and is believable when he must be passionate. Ewan Roberts as his "Watson" figure from the yard is aggressively normal to Karloff's iconoclasm, which makes for a good contrast.
The plot of this one is agreeable strange, avoiding dullness with a psychoanalyst who infuriates patients by hardly saying anything and his traumatized Holocaust-survivor wife. It's also an interesting look at the fifties' society's fascination with psychiatry just as the public was starting to become informed about it. Despite this series' focus on the occult the solution to the mystery is fair in its broad outline at least and doesn't rely on knowledge of the supernatural, which is a good thing.
Whodunnit....
Sleepin_Dragon26 November 2020
Colonel March is called in to investigate the death of a Psychologist, a rather unpleasant man.
It's a very short, sharp and punchy murder mystery, forget setting the scene, character development, scenery etc, this gets going almost immediately, at just over twenty six minutes you can understand why.
It's a decent watch, a fairly interesting mystery, with a few perhaps uninteresting characters in the mix. Despite that I'd still recommend a look.
Lllly Kann is very much over the top as Mrs Patten, but in all fairness it was made back in 1955, fortunately the class and presence of Boris Karloff is evident even here, so much charisma.
A solid start, 6/10.
It's a very short, sharp and punchy murder mystery, forget setting the scene, character development, scenery etc, this gets going almost immediately, at just over twenty six minutes you can understand why.
It's a decent watch, a fairly interesting mystery, with a few perhaps uninteresting characters in the mix. Despite that I'd still recommend a look.
Lllly Kann is very much over the top as Mrs Patten, but in all fairness it was made back in 1955, fortunately the class and presence of Boris Karloff is evident even here, so much charisma.
A solid start, 6/10.
Intriguing mystery
Paularoc17 April 2013
Inspector Ames and Colonel March are meeting when suddenly a blustering John Cusby bursts in, demanding that they investigate the psychoanalyst Dr. James Patton. Cusby insists that the doctor has too much influence over his wife and if the police don't stop the doctor from having such influence over her, he'll kill the doctor. What? At any rate, March investigates and while at the doctor's office meets Mrs. Patton, who is a Nazi concentration camp survivor whose experience has made her mentally ill and Dr. Hayes who is in training to be a psychoanalyst and is undergoing analysis himself with Dr. Patton as part of his training. Mrs. Cusby is having a session with Patton and when done with her narrative, gets up to leave and finds the doctor dead at his desk. Since he was stabbed with a hat pin that belonged to her and since the doors to the session room were locked, she quickly becomes the prime suspect. When one of the characters wants March to hurry up the investigation by saying "There's a dead man in there," March sadly replies "Unfortunately, he won't mind waiting." Best line in the episode. John Dickson Carr was the premier practitioner of the locked room mystery and this episode reflects a pretty good example of this even though the resolution to the mystery is rushed. An entertaining episode.
The Sorcerer
Prismark108 August 2020
Warning: Spoilers
The first episode of Colonel March of Scotland Yard is a baffling and a disappointing entry.
Colonel March receives a complaint from an angry John Cusby. His wife is seeing an psychoanalyst Dr James Patten who he accuses of being a witch doctor. Cusby even tells the Inspector that he being driven to kill him.
Dr Patten is a practitioner who lets his patients speak and says very little himself. His own wife is getting over the trauma of being in a Nazi concentration camp. He also has an apprentice shadowing him.
After meeting Colonel March, Dr Patten is found dead after a session with Mrs Cusby. He was stabbed by a hatpin belonging to her and the room was locked.
Inspector Ames suspects Mrs Cusby but Colonel March decides to study psychiatry.
Unless the version I was seeing was badly edited. I was bemused as to what the motive was for the murder when the culprit was identified. Identifying the murderer itself was not difficult.
I do agree that the acting was hammy, maybe the actors had not found the tone yet as this was the first episode.
Colonel March receives a complaint from an angry John Cusby. His wife is seeing an psychoanalyst Dr James Patten who he accuses of being a witch doctor. Cusby even tells the Inspector that he being driven to kill him.
Dr Patten is a practitioner who lets his patients speak and says very little himself. His own wife is getting over the trauma of being in a Nazi concentration camp. He also has an apprentice shadowing him.
After meeting Colonel March, Dr Patten is found dead after a session with Mrs Cusby. He was stabbed by a hatpin belonging to her and the room was locked.
Inspector Ames suspects Mrs Cusby but Colonel March decides to study psychiatry.
Unless the version I was seeing was badly edited. I was bemused as to what the motive was for the murder when the culprit was identified. Identifying the murderer itself was not difficult.
I do agree that the acting was hammy, maybe the actors had not found the tone yet as this was the first episode.
Psychiatry-themed locked room pilot
Leofwine_draca12 September 2016
The debut episode of the Boris Karloff-starring detective series COLONEL MARCH OF Scotland YARD is entitled THE SORCERER and is a locked-room murder mystery written by popular author John Dickson Carr under a pseudonym. The background of this particular tale is psychiatry, with one particular practitioner's dodgy practices leading to murder.
For those who don't know, COLONEL MARCH is a TV series in the same vein as THE X-FILES or perhaps KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER. The main difference is that this is a non-supernatural show so the various mysteries, no matter how bizarre or creepy, all have disappointingly routine explanations. Saying that, this pilot episode is pretty good, it keeps you watching, and the fast pace makes it work despite the low budget. The solving of the mystery is pretty involved and Karloff remains the consummate professional.
For those who don't know, COLONEL MARCH is a TV series in the same vein as THE X-FILES or perhaps KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER. The main difference is that this is a non-supernatural show so the various mysteries, no matter how bizarre or creepy, all have disappointingly routine explanations. Saying that, this pilot episode is pretty good, it keeps you watching, and the fast pace makes it work despite the low budget. The solving of the mystery is pretty involved and Karloff remains the consummate professional.
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