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Remembering Stryker of the Yard
Alan Keeling and Phil Kendrick

"We cannot bring you tonight’s scheduled programme, so instead here is a case from the files of Stryker of the Yard."

So said ATV Midlands announcer Mike Prince one winter’s evening in 1966 during a local technicians’ dispute.

This early 1950s crime series was originally made for cinema showings and was distributed throughout the UK by British Lion Films. Even so, it was shown on American television (NBC) around 1957 and cut down from 35 minutes to 25 minutes, also bearing the legend Hollywood Television Service at the beginning of each episode. Incidentally, Hollywood Television Service was a division of Republic Pictures, who were renowned for producing B-movies, B-movie serials and such early 1950s television series as Stories of the Century, Dr Fu-Manchu, Frontier Doctor, and so on.

Anyway, getting back to crime, 13 episodes of Stryker of the Yard were first broadcast by ATV from 2nd November 1961 to 25th January 1962, then occasionally between 1966 and 1972, although Channel Television ran all 15 segments in 1972. By this time, however, the series looked amusingly dated. The programmes had a similarity to the Edgar Lustgarten Scotland Yard series (produced at the Merton Park studios), with a comparable host (Tom Fallon) introducing each segment and the narrator’s voice at the end of each segment intoning: "And it just goes to show that crime does not pay", once the villain of the piece had been ‘despatched’.


STRYKER OF THE YARD

alias STRYKER OF SCOTLAND YARD

1953/54 Black and white

Cast

Writers

Director of Photography Basil Emmott

Directors

Producer William N. Boyle


Episode Guide

Films (made up of two features in each)

The two feature films mentioned above could possibly turn up on a pre-recorded video tape or on broadcast television, so as Shaw Taylor used to say, "Keep ‘em peeled", and remember what the man said, "It just goes to show that crime doesn’t pay."


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