William Brayne's crime television is brisk, rough and alert to the streets around it. We value his humour as well as his action, with The Sweeney the place to start despite its fondness for violent men.
Fi1m perspective
The drab London locations in The Sweeney (1975) make its violence harder to shrug off. These are useful surroundings for William Brayne, a regular director whose strengths were pace, rough action and noir atmosphere. We rate him highly at this work, though the programme sometimes admires its men more than their behaviour warrants. We were unsettled by the weight of the violence and the affection for those inflicting it. John Thaw and Dennis Waterman make those men forceful and funny, which complicates the pleasure.
Brayne's episodes include Jigsaw and Sweet Smell of Succession, both examples of his mixture of violence and noir. His fast-paced television used 16mm cameras to capture London streets, giving the action surroundings that were worth paying attention to. We would not give a regular director sole credit for everything that works in a series carried by those performances. But the location filming helps keep the aggression grubby rather than grand.
Before that work, Brayne had been a documentary cameraman, working with Allan King on Warrendale (1967) and Frederick Wiseman on Hospital (1970). That background helps explain his suitability for location-based crime drama, without requiring us to treat every subsequent fistfight as documentary observation. His work on The Professionals, from 1978, put his skill at staging car chases, explosions and fights to use. These are practical directing skills, and there is no reason to regard them as minor ones. His reputation included delivering episodes stylishly and on time.
Bulman (1985) gave his feel for eccentric humour more room, with Don Henderson, a favourite actor of his, at its centre. Episodes of Lovejoy (1986) also belong to this stretch of his work. The humour gives us a reason to look beyond the action programmes, rather than treating the next car chase as his only attraction. Begin with The Sweeney, provided its affection for violent men is something you can tolerate.
Biography
William Brayne (1935–2014) was a Canadian director and cinematographer. He began his career as a documentary cameraman, working on Allan King’s Warrendale (1967) and later with Frederick Wiseman on several films.
Brayne directed episodes of British action series including The Sweeney (1975), The Professionals (1977–83), Dempsey and Makepeace (1985) and Lovejoy (1986). He also worked on Special Branch, Strangers, Bulman and The Bill.
In the 1990s he directed episodes of Canadian series such as Road to Avonlea. He died in Vancouver on 1 April 2014.
