Dangerous Exile (1957): Richard O'Sullivan and Vaughan Wilkins

The death of Richard O'Sullivan gives me an excuse to mention one of this blog's more obscure heroes, the mid 20th century historical novelist Vaughan Wilkins. Because, as a boy, O'Sullivan appeared in the only film to be made from one of Wilkins's novels.

Dangerous Exile, which was directed by Desmond Hurst and released in 1957, was based on the novel A King Reluctant. 

It tells the story of the escape of the young son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette from France to Wales and the attempts of the Revolutionary government to recapture him. The boy is played by Richard O'Sullivan.

I saw the film on BBC1 some decades ago, and don't recall it being particularly outstanding, but the adult cast is interesting: Louis Jourdan, Belinda Lee, Keith Michell, Martita Hunt and Finlay Currie. And I do remember a scene, carried over from the novel and containing the surprising nastiness of which Wilkins was capable, in which O'Sullivan is plied with brandy by his Revolutionary guards to make him assent to all sorts of obscene stories about his mother's sex life.

You didn't hear it from me, but Dangerous Exile can be watched on more than one of those dodgy Russian websites that carry old British films.

Richard O'Sullivan's This is Your Life from 1974

The actor Richard O'Sullivan has died at the age of 82. He was never out of the studio as child star in the Fifties and early Sixties, and became a sitcom heartthrob of the Seventies.

Talking Pictures TV is currently running the children's show Dick Turpin that he made at the start of the Eighties. O'Sullivan retired from acting after suffering a stroke in 2003.

This edition of This is Your Life was filmed just as O'Sullivan's adult career had taken off because of his starring role in ITV's Man About the House.

Look out for an appearance by a barking mad Trevor Howard.

Redcap (1964-6): John Thaw's first starring role

What would Inspector Morse really have been like in his twenties? For the answer, don't watch Endeavour, watch Redcap. Because this drama about a detective in the Royal Military Police gave John Thaw his first starring role.  

It ran for two series and 26 episodes between 1964 and 1966. All but three of the episodes still exist and many of them have been posted on YouTube.

I've been binge watching these over the past few days with some interest.

Thaw is very good, and must have been to be cast in this part aged only 22. Sometimes, in his exasperation with authority, he sounds almost comically like the middle-aged Morse. but there are few hints of The Sweeney's Jack Regan.

The series as a whole is a reminder of how many overseas commitments Britain still had in the mid-Sixties: Germany, Cyprus, Aden, Malaysia.

But the real joy of Redcap is the supporting cast in each episode: you never know who will turn up next. In an episode about bullying in a cadet establishment, for instance, the cadets include Richard O'Sullivan, Barry Evans and a young actor called John Mitchell who was about to reinvent himself as Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

And here are Thaw and Leonard Rossiter. Rossiter's platoon also includes Ian McShane and John Noakes, sporting a dodgy Welsh accent, which is a reminder that he was a promising actor before Blue Peter came calling.

Yes, there's much to enjoy in Redcap.

Oscar Wilde, Vaughan Wilkins and Dangerous Exile

I have mentioned the historical novelist Vaughan Wilkins, whose career flourished for 20 years or more from the mid 1930s, a few times here.

One post was about his first novel, And So - Victoria, which the censors of the day thought far too disrespectful of the royal family to be filmed. And I also went to a Nottinghamshire village to photograph his grave.

A film was later made of one of his books: Dangerous Exile was an adaptation of the novel A King Reluctant.

You can find Dangerous Exile on YouTube. Richard O'Sullivan, the hardest working British child actor of the 1950s, plays the Dauphin, the young son of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, who has been smuggled out of his prison in revolutionary France.

It's not a great film, but I did spot something interesting in the opening titles the other day: Vyvyan Holland is credited as historical adviser.

Vyvyan Holland was one of the sons of Oscar Wilde. He turns out to have several such credits on IMDB, including one for The Trials of Oscar Wilde, in which Peter Finch played his father.

At start of the 19th century Europe was alive with tales that the Dauphin had escaped his captors and with young men who claimed to be him. 

They even reached America - think of 'the dolphin' in Huckleberry Finn.

But recent DNA analysis of what has always been thought to be the boy's heart confirmed that he had died in France in 1795.

What is it with revolutions and killing children?

Richard O'Sullivan: This is Your Life

Richard O'Sullivan is in poor health these days and living in retirement at Brinsworth House, but he had quite a career.

He was never out of the studio as a child star in the 1950s and was the situation comedy heartthrob of the 1970s.

Highlights of his This is Your Life include appearances by Melvyn Hayes, the claimant to the throne of Yugoslavia and a barking-mad Trevor Howard.