Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) Logo 'It's Supposed To Be Thicker Than Water'
by Donald James
Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) Cast

The elderly Joshua Crackan employs Jeff to deliver an envelope to his nephew, escaped convict Johnny Crackan; the envelope contains an invitation to a family reunion of all the surviving Crackans to celebrate Joshua's eightieth birthday. Jeff becomes cocky at such an easy £50, and tells Marty to go away, not wanting a ghost haunting him. Marty is hurt and vanishes; for a moment Jeff feels remorse, but then he is offered another job by Joshua, as a guard at the party, allowing only those with invitations inside. The Crackans arrive: Reverend Henry Crackan from America; Chinaman Sung Lee Crackan; Spaniard Ramon Burgos y Crackan; and the blonde Fay Crackan, a magician's assistant. But the party soon takes a sinister turn when the guests begin to die: Ramon falls to his death from a second story window; Johnny Crackan hot-wires his late relative's Jaguar, only to plunge to his death over a cliff when the brakes fail; and Sung Lee is poisoned at dinner. Watching all this is Marty, who has decided to keep an eye on Jeff from a distance. Fay and Reverend Henry are the only two Crackans left alive, and both flee to a nearby hotel. But when Jeff returns to the hotel with Fay's purse, which she left in his car, they discover Henry's dead body in his room. Fay runs off in panic, and Jeff is unable to stop her. Jeff and Jean attempt to find her by looking through all the British newspapers, weekly magazines, and trade publications; meanwhile Marty investigates all the theatres, and eventually finds Fay. Returning to the office, he blows open a newspaper, helping Jean find the advertisement for Mesmero, a magician with “the lovely Fay" as his assistant. Jeff goes to Fay and tells her that Joshua wants her to return, but she refuses, preferring to be poor and alive than rich and dead. Jeff reports to Joshua Crackan, who says that Fay will not get the inheritance unless she returns. Then realisation dawns on Jeff: Fay does not need to return, since she will get everything from being Joshua's only living survivor; Joshua wants Fay to return is so he can kill her and turn Crackan Manor over to his faithful butler Hodder. But Jeff is locked in a room, and Hodder goes to London to discover Fay's whereabouts from Jean. Jeff finds a nail in the floor, and attempts to pull it out in order to use it to pick the lock. As he kicks at the nail Marty appears; but there is no time for apologies, as Hodder is en route to see Jean. Marty goes to the office, but Jean cannot see him, and Hodder convinces to reveal Fay’s location. Marty goes to the theatre, where Fay and Mesmero are practicing their levitation routine; Mesmero places Fay under hypnosis, allowing him to levitate her off a table and leave her in mid-air. Knowing that people under hypnosis can hear him, Marty tells Fay that Hodder will not hurt her, a suggestion that works when Hodder's attempt to suffocate her with a pillow fails. Marty then tells Fay to phone the police and send them to Crackan Manor. After the authorities arrive and arrest Joshua and Hodder, Jeff admits that he should never have said such things to Marty, who reappears once more.

Jeff Randall (Mike Pratt), Marty Hopkirk (Kenneth Cope), Jean Hopkirk (Annette Andre), Felix Aylmer (Joshua Crakan), Liz Fraser (Fay Crackan), Meredith Edwards (Hodder), John Hallam (Johnny Crackan), Neil McCallum (Rev. Henry Crackan), John A. Tinn (Sung Lee Crackan), Dick Bentley (Mesmero)

Directed by Leslie Norman

TX:
UK: 13th February, 1970 @ 7.25pm

Notes:
*Featuring Jeff Randall, the late Marty Hopkirk, and Jean Hopkirk