Secret mission for John Drake

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Television series
German title Secret mission for John Drake
Original title Danger Man
Country of production Great Britain
original language English
Year (s) 1960-1962, 1964-1966
length approx. 25 or 49 minutes
Episodes 86
genre Crime series
idea Ralph Smart
production Lew grade
music Edwin Astley
First broadcast September 11, 1960 on ITV
occupation

Secret Mission for John Drake is a British crime film series that was broadcast from 1960 to 1962 in 39 parts of approx. 25 minutes on ITV television and was produced by Lew Grade . In a second season, the series ran from 1964 to 1966 with 47 episodes of approx. 49 minutes. McGoohan was dubbed in the German broadcast by Heinz Drache . Only about half of the available episodes were shown on German television.

In the British original, the series is called Danger Man and is often cited and confused with the series Secret Agent Man because its theme music was used again on US broadcasts of Danger Man . The actual title theme of the series was called High Wire and was composed by Edwin Astley . For further confusion, the US broadcaster CBS aired the series as Danger Man in the first season , but changed the title to Secret Agent from the second season .

With the series developed by Ralph Smart, the American actor Patrick McGoohan became a star. Following the series, he was also the main actor in number 6 ( The Prisoner ), which can be interpreted as a follow-up series , where he also directed some episodes.

Series concept

In the 25-minute episodes of the first season from 1960 to 1962, McGoohan portrays the Irish-American secret agent John Drake , who works for a secret branch of NATO and often argues with his superiors about his approach. He has to fight anti-democratic elements in various countries or solve murder cases. In contrast to James Bond, he does not carry a weapon, does not use any unusual gadgets except a Minox camera, never has a wife and very rarely kills his opponents.

In the opening credits of the first season, the secret agent John Drake introduced himself to the audience: “My name is Drake. John Drake. ” McGoohan was offered the role of James Bond twice, according to various sources. As a Catholic, he rejected them out of moral conviction. The famous phrase “My name is Bond. James Bond. ” Was borrowed from the “ Drake ” series.

The pilot episode View From the Villa was set to take place in an Italian country, but for cost reasons the Welsh village of Portmeirion , which was built in a pseudo-Italian style, was chosen as the filming location . This very village, which has been a hotel complex since it was built, was later used by McGoohan as the main filming location for his number 6 series.

After the expiry of the first season of the series, Lew Grade contacted Patrick McGoohan again with an offer to take on the role of "John Drake" again. McGoohan agreed after the episodes had been extended to 50 minutes and the quality of the scripts had been improved, thus demanding greater acting from McGoohan.

The new series episodes were immensely popular and it made McGoohan one of England's highest paid actors for a while. Nevertheless, McGoohan gave up the role after the fourth season, which consisted only of the two episodes filmed in color Koroshi and Shinda Shima , and began working on his series number 6 . In the opening credits of this series, an agent is shown who, furious, gives up his job and is kidnapped shortly afterwards to a surreal village. The agent is very similar to McGoohan's portrayal of "John Drake".

DVD release

The entire first season was released on DVD in Germany as early as 2006. It contained both the German and the English version with different picture masters. In 2011 the series appeared again; but this time in a single box.

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