A very enjoyable episode, unlike today's films, it had a beginning, plot and an ending.

Remember this series from my childhood in the fifties. Lovely to see this one .

Brought back some memories of watching these dramas in the fifties. Thank you .

Enjoyed this, and the way they got the British inspector to take part xx

Wow--used to watch this in the late 50's. Thanks for posting!

Great episode! A terrific production, especially when compared to the utter garbage screened on TV today.

Brilliant, this story line has been used since in many detective shows

Patrol Car (1954-1956), “The Executioner, Season 1, Episode 1, aired 6 April 1955. Bruce Seton as Det. Supt. Robert Fabian, Peter Swanwick (as Peter Swannick) as Mr. Porter, Elspet Gray as Marion Courtland, Noel Howlett, the Vicar, Robert Raglan as Det. Sgt. Wyatt, William Abney, Jim Keyes, Marjorie Rhodes as Mrs. Boody, Totti Truman Taylor, the Schoolmistress, Geoffrey Denys, The Doctor, Peter Cellier as Peter, and Robert Fabian as Himself in Closing Statements.

Thank you for posting these great series :)

A rare example of a living person in Britain having a fictional series made about him - Robert Fabian was one of the most famous detectives of the 1940`s and 50s. He won the Police Medal for coolly disarming a bomb during WWII. He also solved some famous murder cases in these years.

"Our old friend, the blunt instrument" strikes again!

Totti Truman Taylor, who played the schoolmistress, went on to become a t.v. producer. Peter Swanwick, who played the bald-headed lunatic, went on to play a key role in "The Prisoner" on Sixties t.v. before dying of heart trouble in 1968 at 46. He had an odd, 'weirdo' look about him that brings to mind John Reginald Christie, whose antics would still have been topical back in the mid-'50s, when this episode was filmed.

We've taken a house in Richmond. Times when you could afford too.

Good stuff

This is Episode 19 out of 36 total episodes. This series lasted only one season. I do believe had the BBC ran this another season or stretched the time of the episodes to 50+ minutes, it would have been a decent series lasting beyond the one season (Nov. 1954 until Feb. 1956). For some reason (Copyrights, I suppose) the USA named this series "Patrol Car" much like they changed in the 60s the series "Danger Man" to "Secret Agent." >> FYI : You can do a Wikipedia search for Robert Fabian and read a very short note to his appearance at the ending here (and all the episodes).

Thanks for putting this up, loved it. :-)

Fabian prevented the Bathtub killer from making a CLEAN getaway. Jolly good show, and all that rot!

Odd fact: The staccato music from the intro (or at least, a vaguely remembered version of it) inspired the intro to the prog rock classic "Yours is No Disgrace," by Yes.

that right everybody turn there back on the crazy man thanks for posting

The detectives all wear trilby hats and white handkerchiefs in their top pockets. Even the murderer wouldn't dream of going out to kill without wearing a tie.

Well that was different. Just a pity that they didn't figure it out until the last victim. He would have stopped after her. Then again, he was nuts so he might have decided to go on finding people to blame. Funny how he waited for so long though before taking revenge. I suppose his mind snapped for some reason later on.

nice movie,

Wonder why the Police Doctor calls it "homicide" (as the say in the States) instead of "murder"???

Any other websites showing more online episodes of this?

Some familiar faces here - Robert Raglan (Dad's Army) and Elspet Gray (Blackadder, Fawlty Towers). Amazing to see Elspet Gray so young.

......"oh alright then, I'll wait for you....yes..I'll be alone" - she says to a man who rings up 25 yrs later out of the blue. Very convenient she was in to say the least!. This must have had a shoe-string budget - no extras/passer-bys - and only 1 car! But do enjoy these old B & W British films. Thanks for uploading.

I did enjoy this but - huge mistake - how come the photograph of the young Porter, who was drowned when he was about 12 I presume, shows him as an adult man??? Answers on a postcard please......

Fabian said it was a psychomotive,does that make it a close cousin to a locomotive?

Spooky good.

Hi Andrew, can I ask where you sourced this recording? Thanks 😊

Great stuff. When the police were our friends! And long before computers, and all the since-then accumulated data. One might think that more crimes would be solved now, with all that help. I don't know if that is the case. Anyway, apart from fingerprints, the only way then was to think clearly and logically, which is the attraction of all these old stories, from Sherlock Holmes and his Victorian contemporaries onwards. I don't like to be cruel, but at the end, when the actual Robert Fabian opened his mouth, it was quite apparent why he had not been asked to play the part of himself... Thank you.

This was an easy plot to form since at that timeline John George Haig The Real Acid Bath had just been executed, odd too that the killer here looked almost exactly like serial killer John Halliday Christie would also met the same fate around this time, and George Joseph Smith the original Bath Killer was hanged in 1915 in the memory of many. Just one very odd footnote a man was executed in Texas in 2009, his method of murder, yes a bathtub, showers might be safer but you would wonder eh!

All her friends were killed and the last victim took no precautions. I love it

Why didn't she tell her b/f the name of the man who was going to visit her that evening. That would be reasonable, since she had known the son of the visitor. Strange!

The wonderful Marjorie Rhodes

if only,

An Old Corker with Real Guts.

Fabian sucker punched the dude🤣

18.53 "Ring the Yard and tell them to pick up Robert Porter." Unless father and son share a first name it's a bit late. 12 years too late.

He didn't put the plug in.

I hope he wasn't as stupid in real life- knocks politely on the door of a woman he knows to be in imminent danger-- then has a polite chat with the murderer instead of checking the bathroom-- trusts an absentminded fruitloop of a vicar to call for backup-- he's at the local vicarage in the afternoon but doesn't get to the local woman's house till night time???