- Title: Danger Man – Position of Trust
- wiki: link
Our Throwback Tuesday post takes us back into the Cold War spycraft of Danger Man. With a personal stake in the outcome, there’s a ruthlessness to John Drake‘s (Patrick McGoohan) actions in “Position of Trust.” After being approached by an old friend whose daughter has become addicted to opiates, the spy heads to the Middle East searching for those buying raw opium and smuggling it into the United States. Helping him are local agent Sandi Lewis (Lois Maxwell, best known for her role as the first Miss Moneypenny) and an unwitting accomplish that Drake tricks and blackmails into helping him get the information he came for. While it’s a bit simplistic to think Drake’s actions here have any real impact in the illegal drug industry, the episode sells both the importance of the information he seeks to acquire and the personal interests which motivate him.
Drake’s target is Captain Aldridge (Donald Pleasence), a low-ranking British clerk who thinks himself far more important to the Ministry of Health than he is. Posing as an old school chum, Drake gets the naive Aldridge to give up a piece of important information and lose money he doesn’t have in a local gambling den. Able to exert enough pressure, Drake gets the information he wants from Aldridge while taking special care that his patsy isn’t overly exposed to the Minister of Health (Martin Benson) who wants both men thrown in jail after he gets an inkling of what Drake is after. Thanks to some sleight of hand, the same kind of trick that put Aldridge in his debt, Drake is able to keep both himself and Aldridge out of jail and offer the confused man a chance at a new life back in England.
