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Mark Saber

kevinburtonsmith

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Donald Gray as SABER OF LONDON.

It was a long and winding road for television’s MARK SABER, who started off life as a British cop working for a big city American police force on both American radio and television, and ended his career as a one-armed private eye in London in a British television production that was shipped back to the States, undergoing a confusing barrage of title changes along the way.

THE RADIO YEARS (1951-54)

It all started with a radio show, ABC Mystery Theater, which aired from 1951-1954. The show lasted for three seasons, although the third season was merely reruns of the previous season, and revolved around the cases of Inspector Mark Saber, played in the first season by Robert Carroll, while his assistant, Sergeant Tim Maloney, was voiced by James Westerfield (and later in the season by Douglas Chandler). The second season, Les Damon and Walter Burke took over the roles of Saber and Maloney, respectively.

MARK SABER MYSTERY THEATER (1951-54)

By all accounts, the radio show was nothing special, but ABC must have thought otherwise. Two days after ABC Mystery Theater premiered on the radio, Mark Saber Mystery Theater premiered on the ABC Television Network, boasting the same format, storylines, plots and characters. Like the radio program, the television show ran on ABC for three seasons, from 1951 to 1954 (the TV show would wander all over the schedule over the next decade, changing titles frequently, as it bounced back and fourth across the Atlantic and in and out of syndication around the world–alternately known throughout its long career as Mystery Theater, Mark Saber, Inspector Mark Saber–Homicide Squad and Homicide Squad.

The television version starred Tom Conway (previously best known for playing The Falcon) as a rather foppish Saber — a sauve and dapper Brit, well-dressed in pinstriped suits, sporting a pencil-thin mustache, tracking down criminals by utilizing his brilliant deductive reasoning, as well as regular police methods. He was played with all the easy-going charisma Conway could muster. This Saber was no private eye, though–he was a cop, working homicide for the police department of an (as far as I know) unnamed American city. He was aided in his rather Holmesian leaps of deductive logic by the dim though loyal, Watson-like figure of Sergeant Tim Maloney.

THE VISE (1955-57)

That original show (whatever it was called) went off the air in 1954, but Mark Saber was back the next year on NBC’s The Vise (which, just to confuse things, ran as “Mark Saber” in the U.K.), and put out by the low-budget British production team of Edward and Harry Lee Danziger.  Gone, however, was the gentlemanly homicide inspector working in the United States, replaced by a decidedly more down to earth, one-armed private eye based in London, played by South-African-born Donald Gray, a bona fide war hero who had actually lost an arm in during the invasion of Normandy. A few wags suggested at the time that it was cheaper for the notoriously cheap Danziger brothers to hire an actor with only one arm.

What’s really odd, though, is that despite the similarities of name and nationality, there’s very little to suggest that this was even the same character as featured in the previous show. It’s also worth noting that, despite the fact the show was now being produced in the UK, that most episodes aired in the UK well over a year after their US network release.

Not that a missing arm slowed Saber down, though. He was a determined gumshoe, and he could always count on his irrepressible and slightly dim American partner, Barney O’Keefe, and his trusty secretary, Judy.

In the second season, though, Barney and Judy were out, and bubbly, attractive blonde Stephanie “Stevie” Ames was in, as Saber’s new secretary, who had it bad for the boss. Her story? She’s apparently just arrived from America as a journalist, but hasn’t been able to find work, while Mark needs a new secretary. Judy, it seems, has gone and done the unforgivable–she’s gone and married someone.

I’m not quite sure why. From the few early episodes I’ve seen, Gray could barely act. If he’d have been any more wooden, he’d have been a fire hazard. To his credit, apparently he did get better, although by the time the show ended, he was so typecast by playing Saber that other film and television roles never came his way, and he ended up working in radio and commercials until his death in 1978.

The Vise ran on ABC for two seasons, airing its final episode in June 1957.

SABER OF LONDON (1957-60)

A few months later, Gray reprised the role in Mark Saber’s third incarnation (although some consider this merely a continuation of the previous show). By this point, the show had migrated from ABC to NBC in the States, necessitating yet another new title: Saber of London. And just in case anyone thought he was in Newark, or maybe Milwaukee, the opening sequence concluded with Saber standing in front of Big Ben, and announcing in his very best (and polite) tea-and-crumpets accent, “Good Evening. I’m Mark Saber, and this is London.”

You know, just in case someone missed the subtle visual clues…

Despite the title, though, Saber’s cases occasionally did take him to the streets of various hot spots around Europe, most notably glamour spots like Paris and the Riviera.

The following season saw the unexplained absence of Stevie, but the addition of a new assistant, Pete (Neil McCallum), who left mid-series to be replaced by Larry (Gordon Tanner). But Saber did seem to have a problem holding onto staff. By the third and final truncated season (only 13 episodes), he made do with a girlfriend, Ann Fellows( played by Jennifer Jayne, who’d previously been a cast regular in various roles) for a while, until a new assistant, Eddie Wells (Garry Thorne) showed up.

HUH?

RADIO

TELEVISION

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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