When Jack first arrives at Iris's room, we are introduced to her and the way she lives in a famous hand-held shot which lasts 3 minutes 40 seconds with no cuts, during which time the camera shows her at her dressing-table, follows her around the room as she puts her stockings away, and then follows her back to a shot of her and Jack and their reflections in the dressing-table mirror, moving effortlessly from one-shot to two-shot to long-shot to over-the-shoulder and back to one-shot - all in a single take: a tribute to the consummate skill of the actors, the camera operator (John Maskall) and the focus-puller (Mike Proudfoot).
This episode was the one that the producers used to sell the series to foreign TV stations.
Director David Wickes asked writer Troy Kennedy Martin to include scenes showing the bank robbers in the vault. In Kennedy-Martin's original script, the first view of the robbers was as they emerged from the trapdoors inside the pub and on the pavement at the end of the episode.
The details of the robbery, e.g. the robbers use of radio over-watch and the bank's safe deposit boxes being their target, mirror those of the actual 1971 Baker Street Robbery which was dramatized in the 2008 film The Bank Job starring Jason Statham.
The ratings for the initial screening of this episode are unavailable.
However, the episode was repeated on the 18th October 1976 during the broadcast of series three, with the repeat receiving ratings of 8.3 million homes under the JICTAR system of measurement. This made the repeat the fourth most-watched programme of the week.
However, the episode was repeated on the 18th October 1976 during the broadcast of series three, with the repeat receiving ratings of 8.3 million homes under the JICTAR system of measurement. This made the repeat the fourth most-watched programme of the week.