The 77/78 TV series: Little mistakes and special moments

[Poxy]

Hi Yan, yesterday I watched "Five on Finniston Farm". I could be wrong, but I think that the antiques shop or at least the shop window and the entrance is also this store, in which George bought ice-cream (there is only a very short scene in which George and Anne enter the shop).

Best regards,
André

[Yan]

Hi, Poxy

Yes, I think you´re right. It´s hard to say because the store´s front cannot be seen in this little sequence of "Finniston Farm". But in the background one can see a meadow which perhaps is the "beer garden" in "Kirrin Island".

[George@Kirrin]

I do absolutely love the time in Five on a Hike, where, having realised their error with regards to Dick's watch immediately after the police car left, it was still too late to rectify it and they'd just have to solve this mystery themselves...

Anyone else feel this was a little close - perhaps at least waiting for the car to leave the shot...

[Ed Fulcrum]

Hi Yan,

I’ve been reading this thread with interest since you first started it. I have been meaning to post on a scene from ‘Five go down to the sea’ which I have always found quite amusing. I decided to familiarise myself with it so sat down this evening to watch it again. (I also watched ‘Five go to Demon’s Rock’ to spot the ‘hair’ length changes. Well spotted!).

While watching ‘Demon’s Rock’ and ‘Five go down to the sea’ I noticed another couple of interesting scenes too.

Firstly the original one I spotted:

It happens at the very end of ‘Five go down to the sea’, when Julian ‘steals’ Clopper’s head from the bus.
He runs down the road and has to negotiate his way through a herd of cows. Has anyone else noticed the scene jumps back and forth over the same point?
At one stage he is past the cows and ‘The Gov’ and Mr. Binks are making their way through, then in the next shot Julian is back trying to make his way past the same cows again. Perhaps whoever edited the scene tried to make it seem as if there were more cows than there really were! I think it just looks funny.

I also spotted something ‘Superhuman’ in the scene where the children run to the kitchen to call the Police, after their escape from the caves. When Mr. Penruthlan confronts them he is at the back of the kitchen. The children try to run out of the kitchen. Mr. Penruthlan shouts stop, the shot changes, and suddenly he appears to have materialised at the door to block their way. Very strange!


Now a question for others reading this! I probably wouldn’t have spotted it if I hadn’t been watching ‘Five go down to the sea’ straight after ‘Demon’s Rock’.

I think that the trap doors used in each episode were the same prop. I’ve played both in turn and they look very similar to me, except for the colour perhaps. There would never have been a trap door in that modern shed, in ‘Five go down to the sea’, and it is actually probably quite unlikely that the Lighthouse would have had one either!

Another interesting point about ‘Five go down to the sea’.

When the children make their way to the top of the old house, after investigating the mysterious light during the day, they climb over the parapet wall without any kind of harnesses or safety equipment.

There appears to be nothing between them and the ground.
The next shot which shows them making their way around the parapet wall does appear to have been filmed with the children walking on the inside of the wall alright but I just wonder if Southern Television might have been pushing the safety a bit with that first scene showing them clambering over the wall.
Perhaps Gary might remember how the scene was shot if he happens to read this?

Apologies for the long post but it’s been a long time coming!

Thanks, Ed!

[Petermax]

Another interesting point about ‘Five go down to the sea’.
When the children make their way to the top of the old house, after investigating the mysterious light during the day, they climb over the parapet wall without any kind of harnesses or safety equipment.

There appears to be nothing between them and the ground.

I just wonder if Southern Television might have been pushing the safety a bit with that first scene showing them clambering over the wall.

Ed, You are absolutely right. Having just re-watched that particular sequence it does indeed appear to be downright dangerous, that parapet scene was terrifying. While health and safety issues did not dominate matters in the 1970s like they do today, certain rules would still have applied as regards child actors. I am convinced that some of those scenes were achieved by some kind of cinematic optical illusion, similar perhaps to the well known effect used to portray Kirrin Island.

[Tweenid]

Another interesting point about ‘Five go down to the sea’.
When the children make their way to the top of the old house, after investigating the mysterious light during the day, they climb over the parapet wall without any kind of harnesses or safety equipment.

There appears to be nothing between them and the ground.

I just wonder if Southern Television might have been pushing the safety a bit with that first scene showing them clambering over the wall.

I watched this great story for the first time this week,when my eBay bargain arrived.I enjoyed it thoroughly but was also concerned about the parapet sequence.It makes me laugh that the children were not allowed to film at night(so you get all those bright sky shots and shadows when its supposed to be night!) and yet they were free to perform death-defying stunts!..

[Gary Russell]

Safety? Bwahahahahaha... no that was us, no harnesses, no trickery and a bloody long way up. As the vertigo-suffering amongst the four, rest assured I was terrified. And not for the only time where heights are concerned. That tower in Wonderful Time with Terry Kane was a bloody long way up and that was a real drop...

[Petermax]

I have just watched that parapet scene yet again but I have to conclude that Gary is indeed speaking the truth, I am utterly speechless! One slip in filming that scene could easily have resulted in tragedy, they certainly don't make childrens series like that any more.

I still don't understand the lifejackets in the nautical scenes though, as if bobbing about on a raft or a dinghy was somehow more dangerous than being thirty feet or so off the ground!

[Lucky Star]

I still don't understand the lifejackets in the nautical scenes though, as if bobbing about on a raft or a dinghy was somehow more dangerous than being thirty feet or so off the ground!

Yes the production crew would seem to have had their priorities a little mixed up. I have always assumed that some trickery was involved in that scene, Garys confirmation that it was real leaves me almost speechless. I would personally not have been able to do it. I must have another look at the tower scene in "...Wonderful Time" as well.

[Yan]

Safety? Bwahahahahaha... no that was us, no harnesses, no trickery and a bloody long way up. As the vertigo-suffering amongst the four, rest assured I was terrified.

Yes, that´s what you say in your memories. And that it was shot on the rooftops of Exbury House, not on Highcliff Castle. But you were hiding your fear away very well, Gary.
Nobody of you was looking really scared - except for Jenny (but as you say in fact she had no fear). Michele even seemed to be amused when she said 'Just follow me'.

It´s just as you say - "a few laws concerning children and safety were broken but it looked good". That´s it.

[Gary Russell]

I have just watched that parapet scene yet again but I have to conclude that Gary is indeed speaking the truth, I am utterly speechless! One slip in filming that scene could easily have resulted in tragedy, they certainly don't make childrens series like that any more.

I still don't understand the lifejackets in the nautical scenes though, as if bobbing about on a raft or a dinghy was somehow more dangerous than being thirty feet or so off the ground!

Lifejackets were a legal requirement in 1977, harnesses less so.

[RDMorrell]

I seem to recall that in "Wonderful Time", the rope ladder wasn't secured, but just held by a couple of the production crew! (This is also in Gary's reminiscing on that German site.)

Regarding the scene in FGDTTS, I felt dizzy just looking at it. Still, I suppose it was a kind of "real-life" adventure - you didn't always have to pretend you were in danger; sometimes you really were risking life and limb ...

[Yan]

It happens at the very end of ‘Five go down to the sea’, when Julian ‘steals’ Clopper’s head from the bus.
He runs down the road and has to negotiate his way through a herd of cows. Has anyone else noticed the scene jumps back and forth over the same point?
At one stage he is past the cows and ‘The Gov’ and Mr. Binks are making their way through, then in the next shot Julian is back trying to make his way past the same cows again. Perhaps whoever edited the scene tried to make it seem as if there were more cows than there really were! I think it just looks funny.

Hi Ed,

yes, you're right. Thanks for this hint.

There is even another funny mistake in the same sequence: When Julian just has jumped out of the bus and is running away, we can see that the Gov and Mr. Binks are coming after him. In the next scene, when the cows appear for the first time and Julian is making his way through them, The Gov and Binks suddenly have 'disappeared'.
But then, right afterwards in the next scene they are back again, having made their way from the bus to the cows in less than a second

By the way - actually, this thread was not made by me just to list the "bloopers".
I really love the series and do not want to mock it or anything.

Next time I will write something about some scenes which (for me) are 'special moments' of the series.

[Yan]

Okay, finally here is one of my special moments in the series:

In „Five go off to camp“ the boys want to watch the spook trains at night. George wants to come with them but that is refused by Julian. Then, an argument between Julian and George starts which is quite heavy. In no other episode of the series we can find members of the Famous Five arguing and shouting at each other like this.

Marcus´ and Michele´s performance in this scene is fabulous and looks absolute authentically. I suppose this is because Marcus was not very much liked by Michele, Jennifer and Gary during the making of the first season in 1977 (as Gary tells us in his remembering).

[Petermax]

Then, an argument between Julian and George starts which is quite heavy. In no other episode of the series we can find members of the Famous Five arguing and shouting at each other like this.

I really must disagree here. Having seen this episode a few times, I attach no significance to this particular scene, in my opinion it is actually quite mild. Surely the fist fight between Dick and Jo in Five Fall Into Adventure was far more disturbing? The fake punches were wide off the mark but this was more than compensated for by the dubbed sound effects. Willow on leather heavily amplified!

Marcus´ and Michele´s performance in this scene is fabulous and looks absolute authentically. I suppose this is because Marcus was not very much liked by Michele, Jennifer and Gary during the making of the first season in 1977 (as Gary tells us in his remembering).

Many of Gary's anecdotes in his article originally published in the EBS Journal and also in the unedited version currently viewable online appear to be very much tongue in cheek with a style of humour that certainly made it a very good read. He does make reference to occasional spats between the cast members but this is par for the course for most teenagers.

It all just goes to show how we can all view and read the same things but interpret them in entirely different ways.