The Persuaders! 1.20 – Read and Destroy

We had a funny moment watching tonight’s episode of The Persuaders!. I’ve lamented that my family simply are not very good recognizing actors. It’s mainly the kid, but his mom doesn’t have an eye for them either, you know, like most people who are more sensible than I am. However, they will occasionally recognize locations. And why not? We’ve watched at least a few episodes from about ten different series made over the course of about a decade at either Elstree or Pinewood and used locations within about thirty miles of the studios. This region is affectionately known as Avengerland, and it really leaves me wanting to go back to Britain in 1970 with a car and a camera.

So tonight’s episode guest starred Kate O’Mara, Nigel Green, and Joss Ackland, all of whom I love seeing in old movies and shows. I watched Green just the other week in The Ipcress File. He played a bent intelligence officer in that, too. But did my family join me in actor-spotting? Nope, they jumped at the stadium where Danny meets an American spy, jointly concluding that it was the same stadium as was seen in the first episode of Man in a Suitcase. For the record, I was iffy. The climax of the first episode of Suitcase was filmed at White City Stadium, and this was filmed at Watford’s Football Ground. The only thing I know about Watford is that according to one of the mean gunslinging bastards in “A Fistful of Travellers’ Cheques,” they can’t play football to save their lives. So, thanks to the great people at the Avengerland site for clearing that up!

Anyway, “Read and Destroy” is very amusing and unpredictable, and our son enjoyed it very much. Had I guessed he was going to enjoy this show as much as he did, we’d have done all 24 for the blog, which will be concluding next month. As it is, I think we’re going to watch the remaining 18 episodes next year sometime. It really was such a fun and downright delightful program, easily among my favorites of the many great, great programs filmed in Avengerland. It’s a shame that ABC used it for cheap filler instead of something to get behind and promote in a big way, but then again if The Persuaders! had continued, I guess Roger Moore wouldn’t have been available to play James Bond. On the other hand, maybe some imaginary second season episodes might have been made in Los Angeles, to let Tony Curtis’s character be at home and Lord Sinclair the fish out of water. If only!

Young Indiana Jones 2.11 – Austria, 1917

When ABC first showed the Austria episode, written by Frank Darabont, in September of 1992, I was most impressed by the casting of Christopher Lee as a conniving diplomat in the Viennese court. Today, I remain incredibly happy to watch Lee be magisterial and perfect, but the real star here is Joss Ackland as “The Prussian,” an evil, silent official in the secret police. He’s almost like a proto-Toht, if you remember Ronald Lacey’s character in Raiders. The Prussian is menacing and Ackland commands every shot he’s in without a line of dialogue. It’s a shame Indy’s spying activities didn’t take him back to Austria for a rematch. Amusingly, we saw both Lee and Ackland in different episodes of The Avengers earlier this month.

Our son got a little lost with the court intrigue this time. The story involves getting a letter from Emperor Karl I of Austria out of the country, but the letter that the emperor’s foreign minister (Lee) prepares doesn’t quite offer the concessions necessary for a separate peace with that nation. So after some mostly lighthearted chase scenes, the talk of diplomacy went straight over our seven year-old’s head.

Things picked up in the final act, when the chase scenes take on a much more serious edge. I think the cinematographer had a ball creating all the shots with looming shadows and long dark alleyways. It ends with a terrific scramble across the border into Switzerland, a good episode that probably could have been written a little more evenly and with at least one more big set piece in the first half, but entertaining all the same.

Other actors of note this time include a couple of faces that I recognize from ’80s Doctor Who: Elizabeth Spriggs as the mysterious Frau Schultz, and Patrick Ryecart as Karl I. Ryecart’s probably very familiar to fans of contemporary TV. He has recurring roles in both Poldark and The Crown.

The Avengers 7.13 – The Morning After

Linda Thorson’s vacation continued into the production of Brian Clemens’ terrific “The Morning After.” She seems to have only been present for a single day’s filming, leaving Steed to carry the story in the company of his prisoner, a quadruple-agent called Merlin. Our heroes and Merlin slept for twenty-four hours after a grenade of sleeping gas went off in their faces. The next day, Tara is still out cold, and Steed and Merlin find the streets of this “middle English town” completely deserted, except for angry troops who instantly convene firing squads to execute any “looters” on sight.

I think this is one of the most interesting episodes of the series. It’s a huge departure from the sort of stories that The Avengers usually tells, but it’s played straight instead of going for spoofs and parodies like, say, “Legacy of Death.” This isn’t a by-the-numbers adventure at all, there are lots of surprises and twists as the story unfolds. It’s shot beautifully. Lots of it is on a backlot, of course, but they did a huge amount of location filming in the town of St. Albans in Hertfordshire, whose residents happily cooperated for a couple of days and left their roads vacant to play the abandoned city. The scenes with Steed and Merlin walking the silent streets are downright eerie. Merlin’s a great character, by the way. It’s a shame he only made this one appearance.

“The Morning After” sports one of the show’s best guest casts. There are three big names that just about everybody in the UK would have recognized when this story first aired in 1968. Merlin is played by Peter Barkworth, who had been one of the stars of the hit drama The Power Game. The brigadier in charge of the evacuation is the legendary Joss Ackland, and a particularly bloodthirsty sergeant is none other than BRIAN BLESSED, who had left the cop show Z Cars after a hundred-some installments a couple of years before and had played Porthos in a couple of Three Musketeers series for the BBC in 1966-67. We’d seen BLESSED in the season five episode “The Superlative Seven,” which had been made between the two Musketeers series. Interestingly, Ackland took over the role of D’Artagnan in the second series from Jeremy Brett. Plus there’s Penelope Horner, who was never a big star, but she made guest appearances in everything in those days.

Our son loved it. The fights and the action and the real sense of danger and mystery kept him intrigued and excited. I’m glad that he enjoyed it so much, so I felt kind of bad telling him we’re going to take a short break from The Avengers and rotate a couple more shows in to keep things fresh. We’ll be back for more at the end of the month, so stay tuned!