Ghost Squad (TV series)


Ghost Squad, known as G.S.5 for its third series, was a crime drama series that ran between 1961 and 1964, about an elite division of Scotland Yard. In each episode the Ghost Squad would investigate cases that fell outside the scope of normal police work. Despite the show and characters being fictional, an actual division did exist within the Metropolitan Police at the time.
Inspiration for the series was taken from a book of the same name written by John Gosling, a retired police officer and former member of the team. Although the real-life squad only operated in London, the fictionalised team travelled internationally ; however, as was typical for the time, most foreign settings were actually a combination of stock footage and sets at Independent Artists Studio at Beaconsfield and Elstree Studios. Music was by Philip Green.
The show was produced by ITC Entertainment, along with Rank Organisation TV and ATV. It was the first ITC show filmed to fit the one-hour time-slot, setting the trend for the majority of ITC's future output. Another common ITC trait was to feature an American actor, in this case Michael Quinn, in a leading role so as to increase the chances of international sales. In the second series Neil Hallett sometimes replaced Quinn. Quinn was replaced by Australian actor Ray Barrett in the third series. Ray Austin, stunt director for the entire series, played Billy Clay in Series 3; he went on to become a TV director in Hollywood and the UK.

Cast

The show was produced for three consecutive series. The Rank Organisation co-produced the first series, which was shot on 35 mm film. Subsequent series were made on videotape in a multi-camera television studio with filmed location inserts, with telerecordings being made for overseas sales. Series two survives complete in this form, but no complete episode survives from series three.
In most ITV regions the first ten episodes of season one were shown from September 9th 1961 to November 11th 1961, the remaining three episodes of season one were shown at the start of season two from September 30th 1962 to October 14th 1962, followed by the season two episodes from October 21st 1962 to April 27th 1963.
SeriesPremiereFinaleEpisodes
Series One9 September 196111 November 196110
Series Two30 September 196227 April 196329
Series Three22 February 196416 May 196413

Series one

The series has not been broadcast since the 1960s. The 39 surviving episodes are available on a 10-disc DVD set from Network.