Australia
/ 9 Network/ 12x60m-e / 1970-71
black and white
Creator: Glyn Davies / Producer: Michael Latimer / Executive Producer: George
Spenton-Foster
Crime drama series
featuring three detectives from the NSW police and based at Sydney's CIB
headquarters. The trio were specialist investigators who were detached from the
CIB to carry out crime detection on an international Link basis - from murder to
con tricks to industrial espionage.
The series was
made with pretty big UK involvement both in front of the camera (star Bruce
Montague, probably best known for his role in the sitcom Butterflies)
and behind the cameras (writer Glyn Davies - who created the show) and executive
producer George Spenton-Foster, the show was filmed in black and white mainly
because the makers couldn't find an overseas market, the series was given a
publicity splash but the viewers didn't take to it and in the TV Week of 7 March
1970 star Bruce Montague asked viewers to give the series a chance and that he
thought the series would become the top crime series in Australia.
The Link Men had a
budget for each episode of $1500 and 70% of the show was produced on video tape
as opposed to film giving the production a less than high quality look.
The series was
dropped before it finished its proposed 13 episode run (only 12 made it on air
and the final three being shown many months later). In the TV Week of 21 March
1970 the producer George Spenton-Foster and star Bruce Montague laid the blame
for the failure of the series at the feet of the writers and producer Michael
Latimer blamed poor scripts and lack of planning.
In a 2 May 1970
edition of TV Week George Spenton-Foster made a number of other claims for the
shows failure including the cast behaving like prima donnas, a nude scene of
actress Elke Neidhart being clipped and Channel 9 stifling creativity.
Cast
KEVIN MILES as Detective Sergeant Randall / BRUCE MONTAGUE as Detective Sergeant
Sutton / TRISTAN ROGERS as Constable Gamble
