320 Gangsters

First  viewed : 6  January  1978

Back  to  late  night  adult  drama  with  this  six-part  serial  which  took  over  Target's  post-watershed  Friday  night  slot. I  remember  Gangsters  semi-fondly  though  I could  hardly  make  head  or  tail  of  it. I  realise  now  that  was  partly  because  I  hadn't  seen  the  Play  for  Today   original  drama  in  1975  or  the  serial  that  it  led  to  a  year  later  so  there  was  a  fair  bit  of  back  story  I  was  missing.

What  seemed  to  be  going  on  was  that  a  man who  could  take  care  of  himself  John  Kline  ( Mauirce  Colbourne  )   was  caught  in  a  no-man's  land  in  the  Birmingham  underworld,  semi-co-operating  with  an  Asian policeman  called  Khan ( Ahmed  Khalil ) and  a  black  American  girl  Sarah  Gant  (Alibe  Parsons )   against  a  whole  host  of  villains  from  every  different  race  on  the  planet. He  also  had  a  flaky  white  girlfriend  Anne  ( Elisabeth  Cassidy )  to  keep  out  of  trouble. As  the  series  progressed  his  most  dangerous  adversaries  turned  out  to  be  a  Chinese  Triad  gang  who  sent  out  a series  of  asssassins  to  nail  him,  each  one  more  bizarre  than  the  last. In  the  end  Kline  was  bumped  off  by  a  mere  touch  from  a  man  pretending  to  be  WC  Fields  - actually  it  was  the  series'  writer  Philip  Martin  who  then  took  a  wrecking  ball  to  the  fourth  wall  by  having  a  gravestone  dedicated  to  the  makers  of  Gangsters  at  Kline's  funeral  and  then  Cassidy  walking  off  set  and  followed  backstage  to  her  dressing  room in  a  post-modernist  grand  gesture.

I  think  Mum  might  have  watched  a  small portion  of  it  because  she  identified  one  of  the  thugs,  Sturt,  as  ex-boxer  Terry  Downes. The  character  could  only  speak  by  pressing  a  battery  operated  device  to  his  neck; I  don't  know  if  this  was  as  a  result  of  events  in  the  previous  series . He  didn't  last  long  in  this  one  as  he  dropped  his  own  petrol  bomb  on  his  foot . I  liked  the  way  he  had  the  presence  of  his  mind  to  use  the  device  to  say  "Oh. Shit"  as  he  erupted  in  flames.

There  was  another  scene  I  didn't  quite  get  where  Sarah  was  lying  on  her  back  apparently  undergoing  some  sort  of  torture  but   not  seeming  to  mind  too  much. I  realise  now  I  was  watching  my  first  sex  scene,  filmed  from  the  POV  of  her  rogerer . If  he'd  been  in  the  shot  I  might  have  twigged  what  was  going  on  as  I'd  been  told  the  mechanics of  the  act  but  I  had  no  concept  of  the  orgasm  and  didn't  come  across  the  word  until  the  other  end  of  the  year.

The  other  reason  I  was  struggling  to  make  sense  of  Gangsters  is  that  no  one  else  was  watching  it . All  my  peers  were  glued  to  Bodie  and  Doyle  on  the  other  channel  so  it  seemed  like  quite  a  perverse  act  for  me  to  stick  with  it.