Tag: John Steed

The Avengers: Death a la Carte

Death a la Carte (Episode 03-13, December 1963).

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In Death a la Carte, Steed and Cathy go undercover in a hotel kitchen. There they cater to the needs of Emir Abdulla Akaba (Henry Soskin), the potentate of a Middle Eastern nation with oil concessions that the British government hankers after. Akaba is in London to visit Dr. Spender (Paul Dawkins); the Emir is in poor health, surrounded by yes-men, and has been the target of several assassination attempts. Steed and Cathy have reason to believe that another attempt will be made during the Emir’s stay at the hotel, to which end Steed poses as a chef to keep his eyes on the pastry cook Lucien Chaplet (Gordon Rollings) and pasta-maker Umberto Equi (David Nettheim). Cathy acts as go-between, managing the Emir’s menu and keeping watch over his bodyguard Ali (Valentino Musetti) and right-hand man Mellor (Robert James).

Death a la Carte has a number of things going for it, not the least of which is the cast. There are broad racial and national caricatures, but despite the “brown-face” performances it largely avoids overt racism or unkind stereotyping. Everyone is stereotyped, really, from the passionate Italian chef and his conflict with the snarky Frenchman, to the silent bodyguard and lazy kitchen maid. Most enjoyable is the presence of Ken Parry as head chef and manager Arbuthnot (he’ll make another memorable appearance in the Emma Peel episode Honey for the Prince); he’s one of the more adorable secondary character actors to pop up in The Avengers. Even Steed and Cathy play their parts to the extreme, with Steed doing an amusing rendition as chef Sebastian Stone-Martin (“I got it from a bird,” says Steed). This takes the edge off the fact that once more Arab characters are being played by white men.

The kitchen antics are the most entertaining part of Death a la Carte – as well they should be, for we cannot say much for the plot. The viewer knows right off the bat what form the assassination attempt will take, so most of the tension lies in how Steed and Cathy will figure it all out and whether they will be able to prevent it. Unfortunately the kitchen/hotel setting makes for a lot of talking and walking about, but not a lot of action. Cathy doesn’t get to show off her judo skills much, but Steed does get to play action hero nearing the end – another reminder that Patrick Macnee had a lot of physical talent when he could be roused enough to show it off.

I have come to love Death a la Carte more with each viewing. Once you get past some of the dull dialogue about the Emir’s health, it’s actually a quiet, entertaining episode, full of comedy and vitality. The viewer might not care whether the Emir lives or dies, but our heroes do and that’s enough to keep things going. During this viewing, I was amazed at how much fun I was having just watching the actors do their thing. I’m not certain you can ask for much more.

The Avengers: November Five

November Five (Episode 03-06, November 1963).

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Here’s another Season 3 episode that hits and misses with equal exactitude. November Five (which originally aired on November 2, 1963, so kudos on the planning) begins with the assassination of Michael Dyter (Gary Hope), a Parliamentary candidate who has won on the strength of promising to reveal a government scandal concerning the “loss” of a nuclear warhead as soon as he’s elected. Enter Steed and Cathy, the latter of whom winds up campaigning on the same platform as Dyter in the hopes of luring the villains out into the open and finding the warhead. In the process the pair come up again two politicians from both sides of the divide, and election agent St. John, who ran Dyter’s campaign. This is all wrapped up in a health club with tenuous connections to St. John, but which offers the opportunity for Cathy to beat up on another muscle-head.

The plot is the culprit in this particular episode. All of the actors remain above par: there are Major Swinburne (Avengers doppelganger David Langton) and Arthur Dove (David Davies), the two rival politicians with interest in breaking the warhead scandal; then there’s the very enjoyable Mrs. Dove (Ruth Dunning), whom Cathy befriends and who provides more sanity and right thinking in her few scenes than the politicians in all their glory. The villains, however, leave a little something to be desired, with no one standing out as particularly interesting or nasty; though when the real villain pops up in the third act, it’s a pleasure to watch him mug about. All in all, however, the secondary cast is fairly decent and the political setting a neat departure for the show.

The plot, however, has so many bumps and twists that it’s difficult to keep track. As with some of the business-themed episodes of The Avengers, there’s a bit too much technical talk. The politics are dwelt on at length, with actors shooting out their lines so quickly that it becomes confusing; one loses track of what’s at stake. If they had managed to focus on Cathy’s election campaign and the search for the missing warhead we might have been all right, but the addition of the health club, the murder of a politician, and the blackmail of another, made this viewer at least felt somewhat at sea. We also miss out on a final showdown between Cathy and her stunt-man, as more time is taken up with Steed catching up to the true baddie to stop him from creating a real bang in Parliament.

Steed and Cathy are on point, however, and their few scenes together keep things moving right along. There are also some lovely little asides about women in Parliament, as Cathy makes her first official appearance as a candidate clad entirely in leather. Finally, a word must be said about Steed’s informants, two little ladies wandering the hallowed halls of government, collecting information and passing it on to Steed. It’s one of those small elements that makes The Avengers of any era so very charming.

 

The Avengers: Second Sight

Second Sight (Episode 03-08, November 1963).

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Second Sight is one of the stranger Season 3 episodes for a number of reasons, the most prevalent being the subject matter. While it is not quite successful in developing its strangeness to the fullest extent, it nevertheless has so many interesting and macabre elements that I found myself wondering how it could have been improved as a filmed episode, with time and energy devoted to drawing out some of those elements.

This is one of those episodes in which Steed has a fairly routine assignment: he represents the British government in the importation of corneal grafts sent from a clinic in Switzerland to treat eccentric millionaire Marten Halvarssen’s (John Carson) blindness. The grafts are to be transported in a sealed, sterile container, which means that no one can inspect the contents. Steed suspects that there’s something not quite right in the whole set-up, and so sends Cathy off to pretend to be a researcher interested in corneal grafting. She discovers that the grafts are to be taken from a live donor, a former acquaintance of Halvarssen’s, and winds up going off to Switzerland in the company of an eye surgeon (Ronald Adam) to see the operation done.

The very subject of taking corneal grafts from a live donor is enough to veer Second Sight into creepy territory. As with some of the best Avengers episodes, Second Sight gives nothing away. We know that surgeons Eve Hawn (Judy Bruce) and Neil Anstice (Peter Bowles) are not what they seem, but their game remains unclear, revealed in degrees as the episode proceeds. Halvarssen’s apartment is deliberately structured to be confusing to all but the millionaire, creating an Expressionist mis-en-scene that carries on to the clinic in Switzerland. The Swiss sequences are even more disturbing, and use the limits of live television to excellent claustrophobic effect. Steed and Cathy are balanced, “normal” characters plunged into a twisted world, as bothered as the audience by the events of the episode.

The secondary cast is likewise an asset here. Peter Bowles and John Carson were old hands at Avengers episodes, the latter appearing in one guise or another for most of the series’ run. Carson has a lot to do here as Halvarssen, a sinister and sympathetic character in equal measure. Bowles gets to be a bit more extreme, playing Anstice as a fully nasty piece of work who seems to delight in the suffering of others. But my favorite secondary character here is Ronald Adams’s Dr. Spender, the eye surgeon that accompanies Cathy to Switzerland. Spender is a blustering fool, insulting Cathy at every turn, and making life harder for Steed. He’s also one of the funnier characters to come through this episode, wholly out of his element in dangerous surroundings. The first scene where he blusters into Steed’s apartment is worth the whole episode.

Meanwhile, Steed and Cathy are hitting their stride as a team. Their first scene together has them coming back from stock car races, bickering like a couple: Cathy complains about the weather, Steed points out that he went to that lecture the other day (“Complaining bitterly the whole time,” as Cathy concludes). The two are not just work colleagues: they’re good friends and spend a lot of their free time in each other’s company.

With so many excellent elements in place, Second Sight should be one of the best of the season. Yet the episode doesn’t come together as a whole – the plot is a trifle thin, once revealed, and certain sequences (like the murder of Dr. Spender) are funny rather than frightening. This is one of those occasions where the set-up is more intriguing than the pay-off, and the general air of nastiness and the macabre falls apart in the final act. The episode disappoints because it’s not as good as it should be.

Still, for all of that, there’s enough good here to make Second Sight worth a viewing. Like many episodes from this period, it improves on re-watching and I’ve found more to like about it the more I’ve seen it.

The Avengers: The Secrets Broker

The Secrets Broker (Episode 03-19, February 1964).

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The Secrets Broker is an odd episode – I return to it time and again in the hopes that I can bring myself to fully enjoy it. It’s not a bad episode per se, but it lacks a certain something to draw it into a cohesive whole.

The death of an agent prompts Steed and Cathy into investigating a wine merchant and a spiritualist circle in connection with the potential theft of necessary plans for underwater navigation. Steed discover some excellent claret and a sinister wine merchant, while Cathy hangs out at the design facility in the hopes of picking up some information, where she discovers that the chief designer’s wife is having an affair. The viewer is unfortunately subjected to far too much of the latter, turning the episode into a domestic melodrama for a good portion of its runtime. Steed’s investigation into the wine merchant angle turns up far more interesting results, narratively-speaking, with a gang of villains using blackmail and faux spiritualism to gather information and pass it on to “the enemy.” It all culminates in several deaths, a wine-tasting, and a séance.

All of that makes The Secrets Broker sound more interesting than it is. The episode has many ingredients that should form one of the best entries into the season, but it somehow manages to fall short. I’ve mentioned the domestic melodrama angle, with the lovers played by Patricia English and Ronald Allen. English is usually more dependable than this – she played Carlotta in Mission to Montreal, and reappeared in the Emma Peel episode Never Never Say Die, and was a highlight in both. But here she’s forced into the part of a whiny, self-pitying wife, passionate about her singularly uninteresting lover who forces her into cutting alarm wires at the design facility, all to avoid the embarrassment of having to explain their affair to her designer husband.

Avengers writers seem more at home with pseudo-science than with pseudo-spirituality – both this episode and Warlock make very little out of their supernatural elements. The spiritualism angle is never fully developed, although it did have promise. Mrs. Wilson (Avice Landone) and her daughter Barbara (Jennifer Wood) run a spiritualist circle that works next door to the wine shop, helping to funnel information via Barbara’s “trances.” While Mrs. Wilson herself is one of the better, nastier female villains in The Avengers, the use of the circle is never made clear. The pair are charlatans, but it’s difficult to grasp why they need to use spiritualism at all – everything seems to be done very effectively at the wine merchant’s.

The episode does have some strong points, however, including Jack May as the creepy wine merchant Waller. Waller feels like a villain without an episode: his sinister voice and demeanor could have been used to much greater effect, but the episode pops when he’s on the screen. The same goes for our two heroes, who manage to get in some nice repartee and even an edge of flirtation while feeling their way through. Cathy’s “what makes you think I have depraved tastes?” response to a bottle of apricot brandy Steed gives her evokes a knowing smile from Patrick Macnee and a near giggle from Honor Blackman. Steed has some of his best scenes with Waller as they verbally spar via an ostensible discussion of wine. Cathy has the least to do, but she does get in a few nice judo throws in a short but intense fight in the wine cellar.

I’ve now written more about The Secrets Broker than I have about almost any other episode. I still struggle with this one – I want to like it more than I do, and perhaps in time I will discover even more to say about it. In any case, it’s worth a look, and hardly boring, if only just for that apricot brandy joke.

The Avengers: The Little Wonders

The Little Wonders (Episode 03-16, January 1964).

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The Little Wonders is a fan-favorite episode for a number of reasons, not the least of them being that it contains the one and only on-screen kiss between Steed and Cathy. It’s also one of the most amusing episodes to come out of Season 3, hinting at the slightly crazier plots to come when Mrs. Peel enters the fray.

Steed starts off the weirdness by putting on a clerical collar enters the orders as a way of uncovering the machinations of a criminal syndicate known as Bibliotheque, whose members pose as clergymen. He takes the place of the Reverend Hardbottle (arrested at customs) at a “convocation” designed to establish who will be the successor to the dying Bishop of Winnipeg.  Meanwhile, Cathy investigates the connection between Bibliotheque and a doll’s hospital in central London. These two threads will come together, of course, but not before Cathy has a chance to be threatened by men in sunglasses and Steed carves out a name for himself in the syndicate.

This was one episode I wished could have been a two-parter. The Little Wonders brings together some of the best character actors to feature on The Avengers through its long run. There’s Kenneth J. Warren, who will return several times over the course of the show, as “Fingers the Frog;” Lois Maxwell (that’s Miss Moneypenny) as a machine-gun toting nurse, and John Cowley as “Big Sid,” to name just a few who simply don’t get enough screen time. Steed gets into the spirit of playing a vicar/gangster, referring to himself as “Johnny the Horse” (the derivation is equestrian), and carving naked women in his spare time. Cathy has the more thankless job as she attempts to discover why Hardbottle had a priceless doll in his possession, resulting in her apartment being torn apart and an altercation with a doll-mender whose part could have been elaborated on. She also inadvertently becomes Steed’s girlfriend for a few seconds: just long enough for him to kiss her without getting slapped for his trouble.

The Little Wonders plays the clergy angle to the hilt, luckily without wearing it too thin. While there are some moments of filler – no one really cares about who’s going to take over Bibliotheque, but there’s a lot of time spent on the issue – the episode moves along at a dashing pace, with enough twists and turns to keep the audience guessing. The greatest flaw is in a sudden about-face in the third act, which feels a little confusing and perfunctory; there’s also the question of what “top-secret information” consists of, and why government officials have such difficulty keeping secrets. It’s all in good fun, though, and there’s enough going on in The Little Wonders to justify the praise it receives. If I was listing the top ten episodes of the Cathy Gale era, this one would be right up there.

The Avengers: The Undertakers

The Undertakers (Episode 03-02, October 1963).

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The Undertakers is a new kind of episode for The Avengers: one which hints at the slightly madder plots that would be forthcoming into the later seasons. A similar plot will be played out in the Emma Peel episode The Gravediggers, only with a bit more of a spy-fi edge. Think of The Undertakers as a more down to earth version of that increasingly weird little episode.

The Undertakers is also one of the few episodes that have Steed and Cathy stumbling onto a plot almost by accident. Steed has been assigned to accompany one Professor Renter  to America; Renter has “solved the problem of high-speed industrial film,” as the episode informs us more than once, and is heading to America to negotiate for patents, or something to the effect. But when Steed shows up at Renter’s flat, he’s informed by the hilariously flighty Mrs. Renter (Lally Bowers) that the Professor has “gone into retirement” without warning and cannot be contacted. Steed smells a rat and soon discovers that quite a number of millionaires have “gone into retirement” at the same shady community in Adelphi Park. He ropes Cathy in to help out with the investigation, uncovering a dastardly but rather clever little plot involving a funeral home and tax evasion.

The Undertakers has a breezy madness about it often missing from the more serious endeavors of the Cathy Gale seasons. Much of this is the result of Mrs. Renter, who is so apparently daft yet clever that she exasperates Steed within a few seconds of meeting her. There’s an organized crime subplot involving Mrs. Renter’s next door neighbors a bit more in keeping with the noir-ish aspects of the early seasons, highlighting the fact that The Avengers really did trade on stereotypes and unsubtle characterization outside of its leads. But even that cannot take away from the fun of the episode, or the visible enjoyment that Macnee and Blackman are getting out of it. The final outdoor chase sequence makes even some of the more ridiculous twists of the plot worthwhile.

As the relationship between Steed and Cathy goes through its ups and downs, here we see a rather warm domestic connection developing between the pair. Steed shows up at Cathy’s apartment to drop off some things from his pantry in preparation for his departure. As Cathy prowls around cleaning a set of pretty massive guns (why we are never quite sure), Steed attempts to engage her in conversation, telling her how much he’ll miss her and how he’d rather take her along on the ocean voyage. It’s an adorable little scene, augmented later by a visibly intoxicated Steed putting the moves on Cathy in a somewhat unexpected manner.

All in all The Undertakers is just plain fun – it doesn’t drag, the cast is enjoyable without overwhelming the plot, and the plot itself as clever as you can get from this season.

The Avengers: The Golden Fleece

The Golden Fleece (Episode 03-11, December 1963).

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Following my rather violent reaction to The Avengers Lost Episodes yesterday, I thought it a good idea to sit down and watch an episode of my favorite series that I actually like. The Golden Fleece, while far from the greatest of the Cathy Gale era, remains one of my favorites.

Steed and Cathy enter the world of international gold smuggling as they connect a Chinese restaurant and an army base with a gold-smuggling ring run through Hong Kong. Their investigation leads them to three army officers working out of a base in Aldershot, where Cathy obtains a position curating the military museum. The convoluted plot also involves an ex-corporal suspected of funneling the ring’s funds to his own pocket, prompting the arrival of Mr. Lo (Robert Lee), who threatens to shut down the whole operation unless he gets his money back.

The Golden Fleece is a well-balanced episode, letting the viewer in on the machinations of the three army officers and their Hong Kong connections as well as Steed and Cathy’s investigation. The excellent supporting cast includes Warren Mitchell, who will later go on to play the amusing Ambassador Brodny in the Emma Peel era. The three officers, in fact, are among the most sympathetic of Avengers villains (if they can really be called that), and it’s difficult not to cheer for them, even when their activities lead to murder.

The most enjoyable part of this episode is the relationship between Steed and Cathy. They appear to have reached an equilibrium of sorts, dining together, going home together, and spending a great deal of their leisure time in each other’s apartments. Cathy arrives at Steed’s flat one morning just to lie down on his tiger skin rug and read a magazine – an indication of their increasing friendship and domestic relationship.  That Steed still persists in manipulating her is a source of friction, as it appears that Cathy would willingly help him anyways.

There’s also a subtle but poignant moment when Cathy, looking around the military museum, notices a type of gun she used to use in Kenya. Major Ruse (Tenniel Evans) remarks that it was used in the Mau Mau uprising and laments the need for “police actions.” While it is never expressly stated in the series, there are several indications that Cathy’s husband was killed in the uprising, and the faraway expression on Cathy’s face bears that out.

All in all, The Golden Fleece combines drama and comedy that on balance make some of the best Avengers episodes true classics.

The Avengers Lost Episodes

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For those who are unaware, Big Finish has begun to produce full-cast audio shows of the lost Season 1 episodes of The Avengers. Here is my considered first reaction, having listened to the first CD.  (A more complete review shall be forthcoming, but this is my blog and I do what I want.)

The Big Finish radio series is not The Avengers. The removal of the two lead actors, who historically had a huge hand in crafting their characters, is tantamount to removing the heart of the show. At best, this production qualifies as a reboot, with a new cast that do a poor, barely recognizable facsimile of the originals, with little apparent understanding of what made them tick. The audio production values themselves are excellent, as with most Big Finish productions. The problem lies in the casting. Julian Wadham plays Steed as a public-school accented fop with no charisma and no steely undertone in even his most cynical delivery. He’s a secret agent without charm, an undercover man that no one would believe as a criminal, and a ladies’ man that achieves none of the inherent charm that Macnee put into his characterization. This could improve as the series goes on, however establishing one major hero who is neither charismatic nor an interesting rogue means that listeners will be unlikely to return for more. I fear that Wadham has missed the point of Steed, and perhaps the scripts don’t have that point in them. Anthony Howell’s earnest but largely boring Dr. Keel is a tad less offensive than Wadham’s characterization, but does not  make the whole proceeding particularly interesting.

The adaptation of television scripts to radio likewise has serious limitations that are not insurmountable. The difficulty is that in attempting to be loyal to the original series in using the original scripts, the producers have largely ignored the difference between mediums. The scripts are confused, with action taking place via thumping and thudding that poorly stands in for any real tension or scene-building. The closeness of voices between Wadham and Howell, moreover, meant that I was forced to listen to some of their scenes twice and make educated guesses as to who said what.

I find the whole series to be ludicrous and borderline offensive in terms of characterization and casting. This isn’t just about not liking Wadham as Steed (I don’t) but about an inherent respect for the series itself, as a product of its time and, even more importantly, of the people who participated in it. More so than many series, The Avengers was built by the actors as well as the writers, brought to life by them and given a soul by them. Take away Hendry and Macnee and you have a poorly-plotted British noir with plot holes aplenty and no character interest to back them up. While it is a source of great sorrow that we don’t have the original televised episodes of Season 1, this is far from an adequate or even desirable replacement. As far as I’m concerned, Big Finish should have let well enough alone.

 

The Avengers: Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse (Episode 03-20, February 1964).

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Trojan Horse brings us to the stables and the racetrack, and marks one of the greatest oversights of the series: not getting more use out of John Steed’s name. Although his equestrian derivation is briefly, and humorously, referenced in The Little Wonders, I find it shocking that Trojan Horse manages to get all the way through a very horsey episode, complete with discussion of what a good rider Steed is, without once alighting on the fact that our hero’s last name is synonymous with that of a particularly virile male horse.

That little disappointment out of the way, Trojan Horse is a middling episode that neither impresses or bores. Steed arrives at Meadows, ostensibly to look after a horse named Sebastian that’s owned by an Arab sheik. As always, there’s more to it than that. The Ministry has managed to trace some high profile murders back to the stables, and Steed is there to investigate. He enlists Cathy to help with the bookmaking side of things, and she’s promptly employed by Tony Heuston (the deliciously smarmy T.P. McKenna) in a scene that says much about Cathy’s expansive talents, and even more about Honor Blackman’s memory. In the process, Steed and Cathy begin to uncover an assassination ring at the stables.

As with many Avengers episodes, the plot of Trojan Horse leaves a little to be desired. There’s plenty of intrigue, but the initial set-up of Meadows as the site for a kind of Murder Inc. run by Heuston and his cronies simply does not make sense. There are some fun scenes, including Steed teasing Cathy about her excitement over horse-racing, and a rather introspective discussion between Cathy and Heuston about his past. Heuston is a combination of oozing charm and villainy, but there is something sympathetic in the way that McKenna plays him that makes him more complicated than many an Avengers villain. Given that our two heroes are rarely in the same scene in Trojan Horse, having a strong villain for Cathy to interact with raises the episode just a little.

All in all, Trojan Horse probably should have been much better than it is. It has the makings of a good episode, with an intriguing setting and some quality villains, but the script never quite gets there.

 

The Avengers: Brief For Murder

Brief For Murder (Episode 03-01, September 1963)

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Season 3 of The Avengers got off to what can only be described as a unique start. Brief For Murder opens with the public trial of Wescott (Alec Ross), a man charged with selling government secrets to an unidentified recipient known only as Johnno. Wescott gets off due to the brilliant machinations of his solicitor Barbara Kingston (Helen Lindsay) and the Lakin Brothers, Jasper and Miles (John Laurie and Harold Scott). Cathy Gale is on hand for the verdict, and makes it publicly known that she still believes that Wescott is guilty, and that none other than her erstwhile friend John Steed is the mysterious Johnno. Furious at her insinuations, Steed threatens Cathy and then lawyers up with the Lakin Brothers. The brothers, it turns out, have been making a mint by engineering criminal cases to get their client off scot-free. When Steed appears and asks them to help engineer a case so he can murder Cathy, they’re only too happy to oblige.

Brief For Murder side-steps a problem that some later episodes of The Avengers would have: letting the viewer know more than the characters. Instead, a good half of the episode has Steed and Cathy at murderous odds, the purpose behind their apparent hatred of each other kept unclear. The result is one of the more intelligent episodes in Season 3, beginning a character arc of mutual distrust between Steed and Cathy that would have some sort of conclusion in The Nutshell. Although we’re fairly confident that Steed is not actually trying to murder Cathy, just what he’s up to – and how much she knows – remains ambiguous until the third act.

A competent cast reinforces an original and intelligent plot. Aside from the usual pleasure of watching Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman verbally fence, there the added enjoyment of the bizarre and gleeful Lakin Brothers, played by John Laurie and Harold Scott. Laurie is one of the best recurring character actors to appear in The Avengers – he already popped up once in Death of a Great Dane, and would return for the Emma Peel episode A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Station. The Lakin brothers are so excited to be able to work out legal arcana in service of their nefarious clients that they can almost be forgiven the whole criminal thing.  As Steed quips nearing the end, “I’m going to miss them.”

While Brief For Murder never rises to the heights of humor or eloquence that some Season 3 episodes achieve, it’s nevertheless one of the better ones.