Catacombs Credits Guide
Alan Harris

from comments in 2015

When they saw all the episodes, the David Tomblin one was so good, it went out number 3. The first two had to go out as Lee Katzin. Lee Katzin did those two episodes, one and two. After that, it was the best of the rest, and that was David Tomblin, the one that he wrote and directed. Ian McShane was the lead in it. I spoke to David about it, and asked how did you get all that light? He had a brute in there, a 50k brute, which is like a dustbin. 50 thousand light bulbs.

Force of Life was filmed as episode 9 but shown as the second episode (in most markets). Katzin filmed the first and third episodes (Charles Crichton did the second).

I threw myself across the tunnel with my legs horizontal, and Ken Baker, the 1st assistant, said do it again, as there's others there as well, you see, rolling around. There's another one, the camera was across the desk, and I chucked myself towards the camera. I've done stage falling, so if there's anything like that I can do it. It's other people's work, stunts.

The first scene he mentions is probably in Breakaway.

On the television screens, you get that black bar. The lighting man couldn't stand it, it took hours for them to lock in that bar with the camera. They sacked him after the first two episodes, bang out the door. It costs so much time, and time is money.

Frank Watts was lighting cameraman throughout both series. The cameraman Jack Lowin was replaced after the first few days; Harris remembers him from Star Wars.

They almost had a fire on the set, one of the first two. The lighting cable was left hanging from a tungsten tripod or something. People were kicking the cable and it was gradually falling out. It was flashing away. Just before Ken said "turn over", I saw all this going on. I said the sparks had better have a look at it. One person came walking over, then they came running over. All over this hundred thousand pound set.

Barry Morse was sitting in an actress's chair. One of the character actresses, there was a chair with her name on it. Barry was sitting on it. I heard she had died, she was contracted to do it, but died just before filming. They needed an American actor to do it.

Agnes Moorehead (1900-1974) joined the Broadway version of Gigi starting November 1973, but pulled out in early 1974 due to ill health and died in April. The actor's union Equity gave special permission for Landau and Bain, and would not have permitted another non-British actor in Space: 1999. It's likely it was her chair left over from Frankenstein: The True Story, which Moorehead had filmed in Pinewood in 1973.