ITC (Incorporated Television Company) produced some of the best known and enduring cult classics of a golden age of British television in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Even if you’ve never heard of ITC, chances are you’ll have heard of at least some of their remarkable releases: The Saint, The Prisoner, The Persuaders, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Gideon’s Way, The Champions, Department S, Jason King, Danger Man, and Man in a Suitcase. The list goes on, and also incorporates Gerry Anderson’s puppet masterpieces Thunderbirds, Stingray, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, and Joe 90.
Another of their famed television shows was The Baron, which was made in 1965-1966, was based on the book series by John Creasey (written under the pseudonym Anthony Morton) and encompassed 30 colour episodes. These were originally broadcast in black and white on ITV in the UK, the home of all of the ITC shows, as colour transmissions on the channel didn’t start until November 1969.
The show follows antiques dealer John Mannering (played by American actor Steve Forrest), who moonlights as The Baron, an undercover agent working for British Diplomatic Intelligence with the help of Cordelia Winfield (Sue Lloyd), and other characters in the show.
Imprint Television have released a boxset, which is a wonderful introduction to ITC or a nostalgic return, depending on your appreciation and experience of its TV wonders. Incorporating two feature length The Baron movies, the set also includes the four original television episodes the films stitched together, as well as providing an opportunity to see Sue Lloyd in three other ITC TV shows (Gideon’s Way, The Saint, and Department S, as well as in a bonus episode of The Baron.
So, let’s delve in and look at the films and other treasures featured on this fabulous boxset.
The Man in a Looking Glass
Director: Cyril Frankel
Screenplay: Terry Nation
Starring: Steve Forrest, Sue Lloyd, Bernard Lee, Yvonne Furneaux, John Carson, Kenneth J. Warren, Frank Wolff, John Gabriel, Geoffrey Palmer, Peter Thomas, John Gill
Country: United Kingdom
Running Time: 91 min
Year: 1966
BBFC Certificate: PG
The Man in a Looking Glass is a feature length compilation of the episodes Masquerade and The Killing, and opens with a new title sequence, rather than the usual pre credits sequence that the TV series started with. It sees our hero The Baron John Mannering kidnapped to allow a double of him, created through plastic surgery, to carry out an audacious robbery.
We’re thrust straight in to a slowly paced opening scene as Mannering is dropped off and left alone to investigate an eerie, apparently abandoned house. He hears a woman’s cry for help and goes to investigate. He’s knocked out, apparently ahead of schedule for his “death”. Sue Lloyd’s wonderful character Cordelia is immediately concerned and begins to investigate Mannering’s disappearance, whilst he wakes up in a locked room, complete with iron bars over the window like a cell.
It’s a very intriguing and mysterious introduction to the film that throws us into the story quickly, despite the slower pace of some of the scenes. It’s not too much of a spoiler to say that Mannering discovers there is a doppelganger, called Eddie, and early in the second act, breaks out of his cell leading to his doppelganger being killed.
The mystery moves to a new phase as he then tries to get along with his captors (fabulously played by Bernard Lee, Yvonne Furneaux and John Carson) and understand their plan, by posing as Eddie, whilst also alerting Cordelia to his capture so she can simultaneously investigate. It builds to a gripping finale as Frank Wolff’s Frank Martin turns up and begins to suspect ‘Eddie’ is not who he seems whilst the gang prepare for the bank robbery the captors have been planning throughout.
It’s a fun story that feels like it was made for the big screen, whilst obviously retaining its TV roots given it is two television episodes, which were broadcast as a two-parter, stitched together for the cinema. This is particularly apparent in the cliffhanger that closed the first episode of the two-parter on television and the dramatic transitions between some scenes.
There’s some marvellous support from the cast, including a number of familiar faces like Bernard Lee (then known as M in the James Bond series) and a future 007 series character actor in Geoffrey Palmer. One of the highlights sees Forrest’s Mannering, undercover now and acting as if he’s the doppelganger, sparring with Carson’s Revell. There’s some corking scenes involving the pair.
Overall, this is Forrest and Lloyd’s show and they’re both wonderful, Forrest essentially playing a dual role as the title character and his doppelganger (who has a different hairstyle so we’re not confused as to who is who), and Lloyd proving why she was so fondly admired and showed up in so many ITC series and films, including The Ipcress File.
The production design is fantastic, and the extras really showcase why, given so many shows were being filmed on the same or similar sets and backlots at the time. What the crew did was excellent and gives the series a big screen quality, like so many of the ITC shows had.
I really enjoyed this two-parter, which was my introduction to The Baron, a show I’d heard lots about but had never seen. The plot is fun, the two leads and supporting cast are great, and there’s some fantastic production design.
Film: 
Mystery Island
Director: Gordon Flemyng
Screenplay: Terry Nation
Starring: Steve Forrest, Sue Lloyd, Dudley Sutton, Reginald Marsh, John Woodvine, Derek Newark, David Healy, Warren Stanhope, Michael Hawkins
Country: United Kingdom
Running Time: 90 min
Year: 1966
BBFC Certificate: PG
Bringing together the episodes Storm Warning and The Island into a feature length movie, Mystery Island follows our hero The Baron and Cordelia as they try to foil a plot to steal a manned spacecraft as it returns to earth.
Opening on a dock in Macao, brought to life by a mix of archival footage and studio backlot scenes, Mannering (The Baron) and Cordelia are checking merchandise to be shipped back to the UK. One of their crates is missing. Mannering leaves but Cordelia tries to find a crate on a ship, where she witnesses a murder before fainting when confronted by the killer. She’s taken back to the room where the murder happened and sees the killer again, a crewman on the ship. She’s kidnapped and Mannering investigates and is taken onto the ship where the captain and crew claim she’s not on board but Mannering senses something isn’t right. It’s no surprise that Mannering is son kidnapped too.
The plot unfolds as we discover the ship is heading to the mystery island of the title with a lot of electrical equipment on board. Throughout the course of the film we discover that the equipment will be set up on the island to force a space capsule to crash land in the sea, where the crew of the ship will steal it.
It’s a very intriguing plot, fantastical and very Bondian. Much of the two episodes plays out on the ship as we spend time with Mannering, Cordelia and the crooks, who include some very familiar faces: Reginald Marsh as the ship’s Captain Brenner, and crewmen Dudley Sutton as Bran Carlton, John Woodvine as John Garvey and Derek Newark as Calvin Baggio, the killer we witnessed carrying out a murder in the opening moments of the film. Garvey is the only one of the crooks who seems to have a good side, as he decides to take Mannering into his confidence and share what’s happening.
The drama picks up in the second half with a daring escape for our heroes and the mystery unfolding, but prior to this the intrigue is dragged out a little too far. I’m all for letting plots develop at a deliberate pace, but this one, after initial excitement, takes a bit too long to get going; scenes in the first episode in particular feeling a bit too similar.
The final half hour zips along at a pace though as we reach the island as and our heroes try to both escape and foil the plot to bring down the space capsule. Once it gets going there’s some decent action, hampered a little by some very ropey back projection footage. Edwin Astley’s dramatic score is fabulous though, making these scenes very dramatic despite some of my reservations.
Special mention to screenwriter Terry Nation, the creator of Doctor Who’s most feared enemies The Daleks (and Davros) and an excellent screenwriter of some fantastic British TV. He wrote all four episodes featured, which helps to elevate their quality.
Overall, I enjoyed the first of the feature films/ two-parters more, but was still entertained by Mystery Island. There’s some wonderful character actors to see, the production and set design is great and the story feels very worthy of the big screen, even if the execution doesn’t always match the ambition.
Film:
The Baron: The Feature Films is available now from ViaVision as number 10 on their Imprint Television label. It can be ordered direct from their website at: https://viavision.com.au/shop/the-baron-the-feature-films-1966-imprint-television-10/
The restorations are generally fantastic, feeling very filmic and natural, with minimal blemishes and colours popping. Stock and back projection footage doesn’t fare so well, but that’s to be expected given the nature of such footage. Everything on the set looks simply excellent overall though. The audio is also great, and I had no issues with it.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
1080p high-definition presentation of The Man in a Looking Glass and Mystery Island, restored from the original 35mm elements with LPCM 2.0 Mono audio in 1.66:1 aspect ratio and optional English HOH subtitles
1080p high-definition presentation of the original four episodes Masquerade / The Killing and Storm Warning / The Island from the original 35mm elements with LPCM 2.0 Mono audio, in 4:3 aspect ratio
80-page booklet featuring an essay on The Baron series by television writer / historian Andrew Pixley, and Press / Story Information from the original studio files
Audio Commentary on The Man in a Looking Glass by restorer Jonathan Wood and ITC historian Rick Davy (2024)
ITC Entertained the World: The Baron – audio podcast discussing the series with Jaz Wiseman, Rodney Marshall and Al Samujh, featuring archive interview clips from Steve Forrest, Sue Lloyd, production supervisor Johnny Goodman and directors Cyril Frankel and Roy Ward Baker (2020), presented over Mystery Island
Interview with actress Sue Lloyd (2005)
Interview with production supervisor Johnny Goodman (2005)
Sue Lloyd and Johnny Goodman in Conversation – interview featurette (2005)
The Man in a Looking Glass and Mystery Island original Trailers, restored in high definition
“The Man with My Face” – alternate titles for The Man in a Looking Glass
“The Mysterious Journey” – alternate titles for Mystery Island
The Baron ad-break bumpers in high-definition
The Baron opening titles with sponsorship tag
Photo Galleries
Memorabilia Gallery
Bonus disc of Sue Lloyd at ITC:
1080p high-definition presentation from the original 35mm elements
Gideon’s Way: The White Rat
The Saint: Island of Chance (newly scanned and restored for this release by Imprint)
The Baron: Something for a Rainy Day – including optional Audio Commentary by Sue Lloyd and director Cyril Frankel (2004)
Department S: Black Out
Sue Lloyd Photo Gallery
The Man in a Looking Glass disc opens with the original TV versions of the two episodes that make up the feature, Masquerade and The Killing. Presented in their original aspect ratio they look fabulous. Their inclusion is a welcome addition.
The new audio commentary by restorer Jonathan Wood and ITC historian Rick Davy is also first rate. They complement each other well to provide a rich commentary, opening with a bit of background to the film, how the viewing public would have only really known the show in black and white at the time, and how the crew made the budget go as far as they could. They point out background to some of the actors, the music, the backlot and how it appeared in lots of other series. They talk about how the series was the first live action full colour series ITC produced (others were black and white or went colour later in their runs), and the differences between the book and the series. There’s some good background to Forrest, who they feel got a bit of a bad rep for the part, which was his first starring role, and a fascinating discussion about the restoration of the films and episodes. There’s loads to soak in from this track; it’s a fantastic listen.
The alternative titles run got just over one minute under the different title The Man With My Face.
The theatrical trailer runs for almost three minutes and features a few scenes from the film.
The interview with actress Sue Lloyd, who played Cordelia, dates from 2005 and runs for just over eight minutes. Lloyd is on great form, revealing how she only thought she’d be doing one episode, but came away as a series regular. She shares her memories of Steve Forrest, what led to Paul Ferris leaving the series and a fun memory of Roger Moore, who was filming The Saint on the next door set to where The Baron was being filmed.
The interview with production supervisor Johnny Goodman also dates from 2005 and is 12 minutes long. He shares how he came to work on the show, his recollections of the production and working with Forrest. He speaks very fondly of Sue Lloyd. The highlight for me is a brief section on the set dressing, and the challenge of working with blue screen and having to redress the sets and backlot at Elstree Studios to make it look like glamorous locations around the world.
The photo gallery runs for around four minutes and contains around 50 colour and black and white images, a mixture of stills and promotional and publicity shots.
The Mystery Island disc opens with the original TV versions of the two episodes that make up the feature, Storm Warning and The Island. Presented in their original aspect ratio they look great. As with the other two original episodes on disc one, their inclusion is a welcome addition.
ITC Entertained the World: The Baron is the seventh episode of the podcast and plays over the film like a commentary. It starts after the opening credits. Hosted by Jaz Wiseman, Rodney Marshall and Al Samujh, it features archive interview clips with Steve Forrest, Sue Lloyd, production supervisor Johnny Goodman and directors Cyril Frankel and Roy Ward Baker. There’s loads to take away from here about the making of the show and what made it such a cult classic. It runs for the whole of the film, so is essentially a feature length commentary but about The Baron as a whole rather than the two episodes it plays over. However, they’re very critical of the show from Sue Lloyd’s character to its look. They’re very disparaging of The Mystery Island episodes, but are fans of The Man in a Looking Glass. It’s a good listen for the background that you get but as someone who enjoyed the episodes on this disc, I wasn’t a huge fan of the hefty amount of criticism of the show; honest criticism is great, but I felt the negatives were focused on a little too much.
The Mysterious Journey alternate titles are included and run for one minute.
The Mystery Island trailer runs for three minutes and gives a decent overview of the plot and certainly makes the film worth watching.
Sue Lloyd and Johnny Goodman in Conversation runs for 11 minutes, dates from 2005 and sees the pair verbally play off each other well. There’s a few decent anecdotes in the brief running time with the actress and production supervisor.
The photo gallery runs for almost three minutes and contains just over 30 stills and production photos.
The Baron ad break bumpers do what they say on the tin; they’re the brief stills that played at the end and start of each section of an episode before and after an advert break. A nice 40 second addition.
The Baron opening titles with sponsorship tag runs for one minute and is the usual titles with the addition of a few voiceover words “The Baron is brought to you by…” which would be followed by that episode’s sponsor.
The restoration comparison runs for one minute and shows the phenomenal job that was done to clean and brighten up the image.
The memorabilia gallery runs for five minutes and features around 60 images of items like German press books, records, signed photos, books and TV covers. A very neat inclusion.
Disc three focuses on Cordelia actress Sue Lloyd, and four of her other ITC performances, one of which is a bonus episode of The Baron. The shows included are real gems, true classics of British television: The Saint, Gideon’s Way and Department S.
The disc opens with The White Rat episode of police drama Gideon’s Way, which is a black and white episode directed by Roy Ward Baker. It features a series of robberies carried out by a gang overseen by an albino mastermind who is obsessed with rats. The mastermind is played by Ray McAnally. Lloyd (credited as Susan Lloyd) pops up briefly in the first act as Mary Henderson, in a one-off appearance as Detective Chief Inspector David Keen’s love interest. It’s a very tense, well shot, evocative and well-acted (McAnally is fantastic as the lead villain) episode of a series I’m a huge fan of, thanks to Network’s Blu-ray release, one of the latter boxsets the company released.
Something for a Rainy Day sees Lloyd return as Cordelia in a bonus episode of The Baron, in the third episode of the series. Featuring original Miss Moneypenny herself, Lois Maxwell, amongst the guest stars, it follows Mannering in a story about stolen treasure. It’s an entertaining episode that takes us to Paris and again showcases the outstanding set and production design, and dramatic score. Lloyd is given plenty to do and this episode, probably more so than the second film, made me want to watch more of the show. Special mention to other well-known guest stars who feature including Patrick Allen and Michael Gwynn.
Next we have The Saint episode Island of Chance which opens with photographer, played by Sue Lloyd who is taking pictures of a fire breather in the West Indies at a cabaret club, where Roger Moore’s Simon Templar is enjoying a drink. Templar is there to meet a friend, but a poisonous blow dart is used against his friend, who dies at Templar’s table, whilst only part explaining why he’d asked the titular Saint to come to the Caribbean to see him. Lloyd plays Marla Clayton who meets Templar in the immediate aftermath of his friend’s death. Lloyd is fabulous as ever and given plenty to do in a wonderful episode, as she seeks the exclusive rights to the story once Templar has figured out what is happening. The episode was the 22nd of series five and the 93rd overall, airing on TV in 1967. I’m ashamed to admit that this was my first encounter with the TV incarnation of The Saint, despite being a huge Roger Moore fan, both as James Bond and in his many other roles, with particular mention to The Man Who Haunted Himself, which I’ve reviewed for this very website. I knew of the character, the series, the opening titles and plenty more, but had never seen an episode. Based on this outing, I’ll be correcting that and watching more episodes soon.
Finally, we have Black Out, a 1969 episode of Department S, the spy adventure series which ran for 28 episodes in 1969 and 1970, and featured Peter Wyngarde as Jason King (a character who later got his own spin-off series) alongside Joel Fabiani, Rosemary Nichols and Annabelle Hurst. Black Out was the ninth episode of the cult series, and sees a chef and food critic waking in the Mexican desert and unable to recall the previous three days. He’d last been seen in London on his way to see Don Giovanni in Covent Garden. The Department are sent in to investigate. As the plot develops we discover that the critic has a double who is a rocket scientist involved in space tests. Lloyd plays Brigitte and appears about 20 minutes in. It’s a very different role for her to the others on the set as she’s in the criminal gang and gets to show a villainous streak. It was a brilliant introduction to this show for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be seeking out more of this show too.
The picture and sound quality of all four episodes is absolutely fantastic, and testament to the love and attention lavished on this set.
The Baron: Something for a Rainy Day is accompanied by an archival audio commentary featuring Lloyd and director Cyril Frankel, who was also creative consultant for the TV series. It was the second episode Lloyd appeared in for the show, and the first that Frankel worked on. Keep in mind that those stats relate to the production order of the show, not the order they aired on TV. There’s a lot to enjoy from the commentary both anecdotes about Forrest, background to the production shoot, and comments about some of the other cast and crew. A strong commentary.
The Sue Lloyd photo gallery contains almost 90 images and runs for eight minutes. Most are promotional shots or stills from episodes featured but the highlights are some excellent behind the scenes images.
Rounding out the package is a first-rate 80 page booklet, which contains a variety of archival imagery, including production stills, publicity shots, press books and other promotional materials. Andrew Pixley provides a fantastic essay on the show and British TV of the time and ITC in general which runs for a large portion of the booklet. Also included are shorter pieces on John Creasey, who wrote the original The Baron books, and on the directors and other crew members, plus a handy synopsis of each episode featured on the set. It reminded me of the best of the Network booklets, which is high praise in my book.
The episodes featured in this set are entertaining overall, particularly the two-parter that makes up The Man in a Looking Glass, which is a cracking slice of classic 1960s British TV spliced together for the big screen. Fans of the show should be very pleased with the love it has been given on the Imprint label, which packs very good restorations overall, some insightful bonus features, four bonus ITC episodes featuring actress Sue Lloyd and an entertaining and informative booklet. The Imprint label has really taken the baton for classic British ITC TV shows from the sadly no longer with us Network. I, for one, hope the full The Baron TV series gets similar treatment on the Imprint label in the future.
Disc/package: 
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