Murder On The Oregon Express

## Bio

**Murder On The Oregon Express** is a British crime mystery featuring several American television detectives, such as Marshall Sam McCloud ("McCloud and Wife"), Frank Cannon ("Cannon"), Captain Robert T. Ironside ("Ironside"), Barnaby Jones ("Barnaby Jones"), Sgt. Pepper Anderson ("Police Woman"), Dr. Daniel Westin ("The Invisible Man"), Hercule Poirot ("Murder on the Orient Express") and Detective Theo Kojak (with his partner, Stavros) ("Kojak").

On a train trip across country, a man ends up murdered, stabbed fourteen times and shot fifteen times. McCloud is sitting in his train compartment reading "Boys Own Detective Stories" when a young man (Eddie Buchanan) wanders in playing his transistor radio too loud. Unable to get him to turn it down, he leaves and joins Cannon and Poirot in their compartment discussing the possibility of a "perfect crime." In turn, he tells them about a case where a criminal escaped without leaving fingerprints only to be mugged during his escape. He also mentions a time he trailed a platinum blonde in a long black dress only to discover it was actually a high-court judge.

After Poirot talks a few minutes more, Cannon goes off to use the lavatory, but he gets stuck in the narrow corridor with Sgt. Pepper (Jenny Lee Wright); her cleavage in his face resulting in an embarrassing and unconscious turn of phrase, along with a few other off-the-cuff comments. In his absence, Ironside stops by the compartment and reminds McCloud about the murder and that he is the only one still on duty to investigate it, even as the train speed keeps rolling him back and forth through the train car. When McCloud stops the train to do an investigation, the sudden stop rolls Ironside straight into the lavatory and he returns with the toilet seat over his head.

During his investigation, McCloud finds Kojak in his compartment, but he's on his vacation. When Ironside checks with McCloud on his investigation, the marshal announces he will try to get the suspect to implicate themselves using guilt.
Unfortunately, he doesn't get any confessions other than hearing the tawdry secrets of his companions. He learns that Cannon has had a secret affair with his wife, he learns that Sgt. Pepper is a closet nymphomaniac stimulated by cigars and that Barnaby Jones is actually his long lost biological father.

## Trivia

* Benny Hill plays almost all of the characters in this sketch except for Sgt. Pepper Anderson (Jenny Lee Wright), Lt. Columbo (Jackie Wright) and Barnaby Jones (Bob Todd).
	+ Ironically, Jenny Lee-Wright worked with Peter Falk (Lt. Columbo) in the 1970 film, "Husbands."
* Brenda Arnau plays the witness being interrogated by Columbo.
* Jenny Westbrook plays the Invisible Man's wife. Eddie Buchanan is the passing pedestrian.
* Henry McGee and Bob Todd play Sgt. Ed Brown and Mark Sanger from ""Ironside."
* This is not the only time Benny Hill has played Ironside and Kojak. He also played Ironside in an Ironsides sketch on December 27, 1973 and in a quickie on December 27, 1972. He also played Kojak on December 17, 1975 and as O'Jack on August 25,1979
* Bob Todd or Eddie Buchanan possibly double as Benny when two characters appear on screen together.
* This sketch ends as a "Quinn, Marton, Barton, Harton, Larton and Fargo Production." This was a sly parody of Quinn-Marton Productions which created several of the above crime TV shows above as well as others.
* This sketch appears on the "Benny Hill's Video Revue" HBO Video compilation (originally released as "The Best Of Benny Hill, Volume One") but shortened for time. The opening sequences with Bob Todd as Barnaby Jones and Jackie Wright as Columbo having been edited out of it.

## Gallery

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