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''The Sweeney'' is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London. The programme's title derives from ''Sweeney Todd'', which is Cockney rhyming slang for "Flying Squad". The programme was shot entirely on 16mm film by Thames Television's film division, Euston Films. It originally broadcast on ITV between 2 January 1975 and 28 December 1978 at 21:00–22:00 weekday (usually Monday) with repeated showings at the same time until the early 1980s. It starred John Thaw as Detective Inspector Jack Regan, and Dennis Waterman as his partner Detective Sergeant George Carter. Such was its popularity in the UK that it spawned two cinema released feature film spin-offs, ''Sweeney!'' and ''Sweeney 2''. The series was broadcast during a dark period for the real-life Flying Squad, which in the late 1970s had been publicly censured for being involved in bribery, police corruption and excessively close links with the criminal fraternity. Unlike the unwavering high standards seen in the fictional ''Sweeney'', the actual commander of the Flying Squad, Detective Chief Superintendent Kenneth Drury was convicted of five counts of corruption and imprisoned for eight years on 7 July 1977. An internal investigation, called Operation ''Countryman'', was then launched to further stamp out corruption. A further 12 officers were convicted and many others resigned.〔Andrew Walker. (The Sweeney's proud history ), BBC, 17 May 2004.〕 ==Background== The series was created by writer Ian Kennedy Martin, brother of the better-known Troy Kennedy Martin who contributed several episodes and wrote the second film. It was born from a one-off drama, entitled ''Regan'', which Ian Kennedy Martin wrote for Thames Television's ''Armchair Cinema'' series of standalone films in 1974. The part of Regan was specifically written for Thaw, by this time a friend of Kennedy Martin, with whom he had worked on ''Redcap''.〔http://www.iankennedymartin.com/page3.htm〕 From the very beginning, the show was seen as having series potential. After ''Regan'' scored highly in the ratings, work began on the development of the series proper. Ian Kennedy Martin's ideas for the series were for it to be partially studio-based, with more dialogue and less action but producer Ted Childs disagreed with this, and Ian Kennedy Martin reluctantly parted company with the project. It was filmed almost entirely on location on 16 mm film (which gave it a startling degree of realism), and had a heavy bias toward action sequences. The writers were given strict guidelines to follow: "Each show will have an overall screen time (minus titles) of 48 minutes 40 seconds. Each film will open with a teaser of up to 3 minutes, which will be followed by the opening titles. The story will be played across three acts, each being no more than 19 minutes and no less than 8 minutes in length. Regan will appear in every episode, Carter in approximately 10 out of 13 episodes. In addition to these main characters, scripts should be based around three major speaking parts, with up to ten minor speaking parts." ''The Sweeney'' was the first really modern police-based series on British television. Previously, most dramas featuring the police had shied away from showing "coppers" as fallible human beings. The police in ''The Sweeney'' were far removed from the cosy BBC world of ''Dixon of Dock Green'', or even from the BBC's slightly more realistic ''Z-Cars'', which itself had been co-created by Troy Kennedy-Martin. Officers were brutal and violent in dealing with London's hardened criminals, and prone to cutting corners and bending laws. The series showed a somewhat more realistic side of the police, which often had a disregard for authority, rules and the "system", as long it got the job done. Until ''The Sweeney'', this had been a subject largely whitewashed by British television. The series' own awareness of its breaking new ground is evident in episodes such as the second series "Trojan Bus", where Regan briefly whistles the theme-tune to ''Dixon of Dock Green'' after a particularly elementary piece of detective work. It was a fast-paced edge-of-your-seat action series, depicting the Squad's relentless battle against armed robbery; but it nevertheless included a substantial degree of humour. For the time, it had a high degree of graphic on-screen violence and the episodes had many character deaths. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Sweeney」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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