Gideon's Way was a 1960s ITC show about Commander Gideon of Scotland Yard. I was watching it because one of its episodes features David Collings as an emotionally disturbed young man who goes round London in a mask stealing girls' hair.

It is amazing the things that you don't need to make up about his career, it really is.

This picspam has mainly Mr Collings, but that's not me being biased, the episode is nearly all him. Sadly, it also upset me for reasons, which is a shame because otherwise my main problem for this entry was how many close ups of the young David Collings does a person need in a picspam? it's not in colour, though.

(It was dealing with mental illness, but then remembered it was an ITC action thing shot on film and wound up with drama at knife-point and on roof-tops and I was already shaky from the weird camera angles. Aargh.) So, do note, if such things trouble you, there will be references here to mental illness and suicide.

For liadtbunny, who put this picspam on her Fandom Snowflake wishlist, and who is curious about the ring David Collings wears in 60s things. Never say that I don't grant wishes from time to time. ;-)

If you're new round here, and wondering why I'm so amused at David Collings stealing people's hair (and sad at the lack of colour), here is a quick explanation of why:




There is a sinister figure lurking round 1960s London in the fog in a mask!


Look, it's David Collings, swiping people's hair. (I know. I know. Of all things and of all people... :lol:)


He has an evil mother (Fanny Rowe). (No, really, she's actually evil. She's snobbish and cruel and domineering and glad his fiancee killed herself.)




Then he takes his latest lock of hair upstairs and puts it in the special wallet with the rest.


Erm. Yes. Well, as I said, how many David Collings close ups would you like? The director did not stint on them. Also I think this may be verging on David Collings pr0n or something. 0_o


He knows stuff is wrong with him and wants help badly.


However, his hair-stealing antics have hit the national headlines. (This is John Gregson as Commander Gideon, with his wife, played by Daphne Anderson. She's much too good for the role and makes these little home scenes the best bits in the episodes. John Gregson is fine, but no one seems to have thought about having characterisation, so the actors are doing their best under tough circumstances.)


Gideon's second-in-command, Alexander Davion as David Keen (:lol:). Again, he's very pretty but there is not much to say. His bit in the opening credits is v funny though. I should see if it's on YouTube to show you. (And in the US version of the credits the first of several dreadful threats Gideon was defending London against? Yes, every week you got David Collings lurking about in the shadows. He is the scariest thing in London.)


Weird camera angles for David Collings (Alan Gore-Campbell - he's v posh, hence his snobbish mother) as he looks at his photo of Wendy, his late fiancee.

(Making this the second time I've seen David Collings in a role where he's engaged to someone. In this one she killed herself; in the other he killed himself. So, I now assume in all things where his character is married, that there must have been a very short engagement, thus enabling everyone to survive to the wedding.)




And then his mother tells him to stop moping and tears up the picture of his dead fiancee. (I told you she was evil.)


Which upsets him a lot and he goes off wandering round London not knowing what he's doing.


As I said, there are lots of close-ups of David Collings.


He contemplates suicide.


But is stopped by someone.


Eventually, he winds back up at Wendy's bedsit and meets the new occupant (Gillian Lewis). She's called Marjorie and she's remarkably unfazed by disturbed young men walking in and calling her Wendy.




Um. Yes. More close ups of confused!Alan.


She lets him talk and gives him a drink and calms him down.


So, he explains about Wendy and how special she was and what happened to her and that he doesn't understand why she killed herself (and how much he liked her hair, hence the hair fetish and theft).


I like her smile, btw.


She advises him to get help and he says that he will.

(They should have ended this here, okay. It would have been less dramatic, but I would have been happier.)


More weird POV camera-angles.


He tells his mother that he needs to go to a psychiatric hospital because he's having more than a breakdown (which he went to some posh but useless private clinic for).

She won't listen, which causes him to shout and look like this:


And then the next second he looks like this again:



Anyway, then she tells him that he should be glad Wendy is dead, because she was common and worthless. And that she went round to tell her so on the day she committed suicide. Naturally, he loses it and calls her a murderer (fair enough, I think) and runs out of the house. Stuff gets dramatic. I get upset.


On the bus he sneaks his hand over to try and touch a girl's hair. Close up of the ring for liadtbunny!

(Everytime this sort of thing happens in this there is OTT scary film music that would lead you to suppose that a serial killer was going to stab someone or Dracula was about to leap out of the shadows. Call me a bad person, but I don't think "David Collings might stroke your hair" is quite at that level. Anyway, this is a good thing because it amused me. I remembered this fact every time I got upset at the pictures during this post.)




Then he tries to steal the girl's hair and she fights back and gets hurt. Which means he spends the rest of the episode with the most unconvincing scratches I've ever seen.


Still, doesn't put off the woman in the pub who wants to take him home with her. (I know! What is this I'm watching?!)


He gets scared off by the police, so she is saved an embarrassing encounter where she tries to have sex and he tries to steal her hair. Could have been so traumatic all round, really.


So he ends up back at Wendy's. Marjorie unwisely lets him in, even though you'd have thought she wouldn't have wanted to let anyone see that bow on her dressing gown.

I think their wee faces tell the next bit without any words:









She's very resourceful, though. If the script had let her, she'd have dealt with him. (She talks him into putting the knife down, because if he didn't want to hurt anyone else, he won't hurt her either. And then calms him down and tries to brain him with the ash tray. I feel sure that 1960s stereotyping aside, she could have taken him, but there. I do note that he has a thick coat on a lot, probably because otherwise he is so skinny, he would never have looked threatening enough. Anyway, cue rooftop rescues and tear gas and stuff. Bah.)


So, you know, I don't know what that was I just watched, but it did at least have a lot of David Collings.

Gideon's Way is now my least favourite of the old TV I've seen, but I do mean to watch some more of it at some point - there are episodes by Malcolm Hulke and Norman Hudis (who wrote the early Carry Ons) and an episode with Angela Douglas. But it meshes kitchen-sink type things (the whys and hows of people becoming mixed up in criminal activity) with the very packaged adventure style of ITC serials and it feels very weird, even in the other episodes I saw.


Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there: