We saw Clement and Ian La Fresnais interviewed - this didn't come up, but their love of football surely did (it crops up here). Their screenplay - based on a novel by Martin Waddell - is conspicuous for their wit, viz. "He's either dead or terribly well - I can't remember which". And Clement's done a good job directing.
Tom Courtenay is the dodgy dealer who gets mixed up in murder and espionage. With Romy Schneider, Alan Badel, James Villiers, Leonard Rossiter in a great role as a pragmatic assassin, James Bolam & Fiona Lewis (Otley's ex who still has a thing for him), Freddie Jones, Edward Hardwicke & Emma Thompson - I mean Phyllida Law, but the resemblance in appearance and voice is striking - and Geoffrey Bayldon. Full of great one liners, and touches like the copper forgetting to shut the cell door.
I was maybe getting the feeling in the last third that is was one chase too many, but overall, great fun, and interesting London locations - Q correctly identified Bowater House - it's a world I was in, at that time, and could sort of feel it, magnified by having seen it when young, at the cinema, initially, then on TV (23 May 1976).
Cinematographer Austin Dempster (it looked like it was in 4x3, turns out it isn't - open matte?), music Stanley Myers, editor Richard Best, for Columbia. Pleased to see it's been re-released on Blu Ray.
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