Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Colonel Humphrey Flack: Alan Mowbray and Frank Jenks

This sitcom originally aired on The Dumont network from October 1953 until July 1954.

By 1953, Britisher Alan Mowbray was one of Hollywood's most experienced charactor actors, having appeared in nearly 300 B films since 1923. ( Contrary to popular belief in only 5 of them did he play the butler). Dumont could not have picked a more suitable performer to play Col. Humphrey Flack, a dapper, witty, somewhat paunchy modern day Robin Hood. Flack was a con man's con man, outswindling assorted swindlers in order to aid the poor-and retaining a percentage for himself, of course, to " cover expences." His sidekick was Uthas P.( for Patsy) Garvey,( Frank Jenks), who was no slouch himself, but not up to the colonel's suave standards. The program was based on a series of Saturday Evening Post stories by Everett Rhodes Castle and was telecast live. The pilot for the series was shown on Plymouth Playhouse. Some kinescope reruns were syndicated after the series was canceled in 1954. The producers and the original stars went back into the studio for CBS Films and re-filmed the episodes using the original scripts to produce a better set of shows which they syndicated in 1958 under the title Colonel Flack. 39 episodes were filmed. This series was also know as The Fabulous Fraud.

Here's an article talking about some of the new tv series of the fall 1953-54 season by Time Magazine

New Shows
Monday, Oct. 26, 1953 Article

Where's Raymond? (Thurs. 8:30 p.m., ABC-TV) is an amusing exhibition of perpetual motion by Ray Bolger. As a fancy-free Broadway dancer who is the despair of his starchy manager-brother (Allyn Joslyn), Bolger squanders his salary, plays marbles with the neighborhood kids, habitually gets to the theater seconds before curtain time. But once onstage, he is his familiar self, dancing on rubber legs, rolling soulful eyes, singing like he never left his morning shower. Although the hero is a bit too addlepated, Bolger-in-motion makes up for all shortcomings. Sponsors: American Tobacco Co. and Sherwin-Williams Co.

Jamie (Mon. 7:30 p.m.. ABC-TV) puts eleven-year-old Brandon (Shane) De Wilde to work, as Jamieson John Francis McHummer. in the "heartwarming story of an orphan lad in search of a real friend among his many well-meaning relatives." Young Brandon makes a captivating orphan, the trial and delight of his understanding grandfather, Ernest Truex. Sponsors: Duffy-Mott Co. and Ekco Products.

Topper (Fri. 8:30 p.m., CBS-TV), after 27 years of consorting with ghosts in Thorne Smith's novels and in the movies, starts all over again on TV. As Topper,

Leo G. Carroll is properly stuffy and henpecked (by Lee Patrick) until a playfully dead young couple (Anne Jeffreys and Robert Sterling) and their 165-lb St. Bernard show him how to have his fun and his wife's adoration too. Despite the convulsive dubbed-in laughter, it is a whimsical half-hour with a comic formula. Sponsor: R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

Colonel Humphrey Flack (Wed. 9 p.m., Du Mont) is a supercilious old rogue (played by Alan Mowbray), who is supposed to be "a modern Robin Hood with a heart of gold" because the victims of his magnificent swindles are swindlers who think they are swindling him. This apparently makes everything all right. Sponsor: American Chicle Co.

The Marriage (Sun. 7:30 p.m., NBC Radio") involves the family problems of Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, who made domesticity pay off handsomely in the Broadway hit play, The Fourposter. As Ben and Liz Marriott—17 years married, two children—they give refreshingly restrained performances, make the most of intelligently written scripts which sometimes skirt close to radio taboos, e.g., when daughter protests that brother has gone to the bathroom with the complete works of James Fenimore Cooper. Unsponsored

For an episode guide go to http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Stage/2950/US/Comedy/ColonelHumphreyFlack.htm

For a page dedicated to Alan Mowbray go to http://www.dougmacaulay.com/kingspud/sel_by_actor_index_2.php?actor_first=Alan&actor_last=Mowbray

For a great website on the history of the Dumont network which aired Colonel Humphrey Flack go to http://members.aol.com/cingram/television/dumont.htm