Rewatching The Avengers Part II

Patrick Mcnee and Diana Rigg in a publicity still for The Avengers

Here are some more selections from the fourth season of The Avengers, which introduced Diana Rigg as Emma Peel and the first season produced on film.

Too Many Christmas Trees: John Steed (Patrick Macnee) is having nightmares involving Christmas trees and someone who has dressed up like Santa Claus. After awakening from one sucsh nightmare, Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) arrives at Steed’s flat and gives him some Christmas cards he has received.

One is from Cathy Gale. Steed is pleased but wonders why Mrs. Gale sent it from Fort Knox. Mrs. Gale, of course, was played by Honor Blackman, who played Pussy Galore in Goldfinger.

The Girl From Auntie: Emma is incapacitated and kidnapped after an “MFU” (Man From U.N.C.L.E.?) all-night costume party. Another woman has been substituted in Emma’s place.

Auntie refers to Mr. Auntie, the villain of the episode. But there are multiple in-jokes. Two dead men (of several) are named Bates and Marshall, presumably a reference to John Bates (costume designer for Diana Rigg) and Marshall (presumably a reference to writer Roger Marshall). Auntie operates out of the offices of Art Incorporated. Steed investigates the office. While checking out a control panel, it starts beeping. The sound is similar to (but not identical to) the communicator sound of the communicator from The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

We also see in Emma’s apartment she has a copy of “Self Defence: No Holds Barred” supposedly written by Ray Austin. Austin was the stunt arranger for the series. He’d become a director and emigrate to the U.S. where he would helm episodes of various productions. One was the 1983 TV movie The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E.

The cast includes David Bauer as a sinister Soviet bloc diplomat. He’d later appear in You Only Live Twice (American diplomat) and Diamonds Are Forever (Mr. Slumber). At one point, certain knitting needles are referred to as “double-ohs.”

A Touch of Brimstone: This episode is perhaps best remembered for Diana Rigg appearing in a skimpy outfit while wearing a spiked collar

When the U.S. ABC network imported the show to the United States, ABC did not broadcast this installment. In 1999, the U.S. cable television channel TV Land had a week of spy-related TV shows as part of a promotion for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. The night for The Avengers included A Touch of Brimstone and referenced the censorship issue.

A new Hellfire Club is doing no good, bringing Steed and Mrs Peel into the case. The striking visuals cause this to be one of the best-remembered episodes of the series.

The cast included Carol Cleveland, who often appeared with Monty Python, and Alf Joint, the stunt performer who appeared in the pre-titles sequence of Goldfinger.

The House That Jack Built: The audience learns A LOT about the background of Emma Peel. In previous episodes, we’re told how she’d a genius. In this episode, we eventually are told how she took control of the empire of her late father, Sir John Knight. The audience is shown part of a newspaper headline that says, “21-year-old girl to head board.” Once in control, Emma fired an automation expert.

That expert is Professor Keller. He is the one who has lured Emma into the trap. Except it turns out that Keller IS DEAD. He laid out the trap to live beyond him. He has made recordings to test Emma. The point of the exercise is to drive Emma to kill herself

Thankfully, Steed is on the job. Regardless, the episode is a showcase for Diana Rigg and art director Harry Pottle, with his imaginative sets. Pottle would work on the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice, working with production designer Ken Adam

Re-Watching The Avengers Part I

Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg in a publicity still for The Avengers

In the U.S., the Amazon Prime streaming service is showing the fourth season (the first Diana Rigg season) of The Avengers.

That was the season that Rigg (as Emma Peel) succeeded Honor Blackman (as Cathy Gale) on the series starring Patrick Macnee. The Avengers debuted in 1961, a year before Dr. No was released in the U.K.

Season Four had other changes. The Avengers had been a studio-bound, videotape series for its first three seasons. With the fourth season, the production was on film and there was some location shooting.

A few highlights from the early part of Season Four:

The Town of No Return: John Steed (Macnee) and his new partner, Emma Peel (Rigg) already are up to speed with no explanation about the departure of Cathy Gale.

The duo head to a small British town where agents keep disappearing. One of the villains is played by Robert Brown, who’d go on to play M in four James Bond films in the 1980s, including A View to a Kill, which included Macnee in the cast.

Macnee and Brown have a fight scene at one point. The hurried pace of the now-filmed production shows up at places. At one point, a boom microphone can be seen at the top of the screen.

Still, the episode demonstrates why The Avengers attracted a wide audience. There’s a mix of adventure, quirky characters, weird shots, and humor all within 50 (or so) minutes of screen time. The episode was written by Brian Clemens (1931-2015), who had the title of associate producer at the time. He’d be promoted to producer in the next season and would have that title in the 1970s revival The New Avengers.

The Gravediggers: Again, striking visuals, including an odd-looking funeral at the start of the episode. After an apparent burial, an antenna rises up from the grave. The cast includes future Bond film actor Steven Berkoff.

The episode includes a sequence where Rigg’s Emma Peel is tied to the tracks of a miniature railroad. Composer Laurie Johnson provides “Peril of Pauline” type music.

The Cybernauts: One of the show’s best-remembered stories where a robot is killing off industrialists. The episode would inspire a sequel in the next season as well as another sequel in The New Avengers revival.

The cast of the episode includes future Bond film actors Burt Kwouk and Bernard Horsefall. The villain is played by Michael Gough, who’d portray Alfred the Butler in four Batman movies from 1989 through 1997.

UPDATE: When I watched this episode on Jan. 12, it said Brian Clemens wrote it. But the IMDB.COM ENTRY says it was scripted by Philip Levene. When I tried to check it again on Amazon Prime, it says the video is unavailable. Levene was one of the best writers on The Avengers.

UPDATE II: The episode is back up on Amazon Prime. The writing credit says, “Teleplay by Brian Clemens.” That’s not what it says on IMDB. Readers reassure me it was written by Levene. (See comments below.) I don’t know what’s going on. I am a fan of the Levene-written episodes. He would get a story consultant credit in the final season of the show.

TO BE CONTINUED

How the 1970s were tough on TV spies

Robert Conrad in a publicity still for A Man Called Sloane

After a boom for spy shows in the 1960s, things dried up in the 1970s. Nevertheless, there were various attempts to return to the espionage genre.

The Spy Command Feature Story Index, the blog’s sister site, has a new story, 1970s: Tough times for spy TV. It examines a combination of unmade projects, unsold pilots and short-lived series. It’s based on some recent posts in the blog.

Among the examples: An unmade TV movie for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and unsold pilots devised by the likes of Sam Rolfe (U.N.C.L.E.) and Brian Clemens (The Avengers).

1978: QM tries its version of The Avengers

In the late 1970s, things were changing at QM Productions. Founder Quinn Martin sold his company to Taft Broadcasting and those he left behind tried to carry on.

One project after Martin’s departure was Escapade, a QM version of The Avengers. It starred Granville Van Dusen and Morgan Fairchild. QM brought aboard Brian Clemens as writer-producer. Clemens was was of the major creative forces behind The Avengers and its 1970s revival, The New Avengers.

Escapade included a mammoth computer to assist its heroes. QM held onto the general notion. In 1979, QM launched A Man Called Sloane, which also had a chattering computer.

By this time, many of the QM behind-the-camera veterans had also departed. One who was still around was John Conwell, QM’s long-time casting director. So was John Elizalde, the music supervisor who hired composers for QM productions.

Here is the video. H/T @LeeGoldberg who got our attention about this.

An Avengers stage production may occur, Bamigboye says

Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg in a publicity still for The Avengers television series.

A stage musical version of The Avengers may be in the offing, the Daily Mail’s Baz Bamiboye said in a post on Twitter.

The project “in very early stages development 4 poss musical by #UniversalStageProductions,” Bamigboye wrote on Twitter.

(UPDATE, 7:20 a.m., New York time: Bamigboye now has a story online at the Daily Mail website. “A small team has been assembled to explore whether The Avengers could work under a West End proscenium,” he wrote.

Former 007 film composer David Arnold has been asked to work on the stage project as well as writer-director Sean Foley, Bamigboye reported.)

Bamigboye, this decade, has had a number of 007 film scoops proven correct, which is why the blog notes this.

The original Avengers television series ran from 1961 to 1969. There was also a revival, The New Avengers, that ran in the 1970s.

But there was also a 1971 stage play.

The Voices of East Angela website had a summary of the 1971 stage play.

Patrick Macnee, the star of the 1960s and ’70s TV versions, declined to participate. Instead, “experienced British TV actor Simon Oates was drafted in,” according to the website.

Voices of East Angela also reproduced posters of the play, directed by Leslie Phillips and written by Terence Feely and Brian Clemens. The latter worked as a writer and producer on the 1960s and ’70s TV shows.

“It seems the technically challenging stage show proved too challenging and the plot was verging on the pantomime featuring as it did invisible dolly birds (this was 1971 remember) and a giant computer brain,” according to Voices of East Angela.

“Numerous set changes and a multitude of set mishaps generated more unintended laughs than those written in to the script and following an initial run of ten nights in Birmingham the show was shipped down to the West End where it opened nine days later.

“Such were the poor reviews and numerous stage mishaps that it lasted a mere three weeks at the Prince of Wales theatre before it was unceremoniously hoisted off stage with a metaphorical shepherd’s crook.”

We’ll see what happens. In the U.S., fans of The Avengers television show are deeply annoyed how Marvel’s Avengers (featured in two movies so far, with two more scheduled for 2018 and 2019) have pre-empted the name.

The original Avengers comic book debuted in 1963, two years after The Avengers TV show premiered in the U.K. but before the series came to America.

Brian Clemens, mastermind of The Avengers, dies

Patrick Mcnee and Diana Rigg, arguably the best pairing in The Avengers

Brian Clemens, a mastermind of the television series The Avengers, has died, according to an obituary on the INQUISITR WEBSITE.

Clemens, born in 1931, had a lengthy career as a writer and producer. But he is perhaps best known for his work on The Avengers (1961-69) and The New Avengers (1976-77).

In a 2008 U.K. television interview, Clemens said The Avengers “had a curious logic all its own.” Ideas that might work elsewhere could work on The Avengers, he said. “The Avengers had unwritten rules” which were “in my head,” Clemens said.

Of suave John Steed, played by Patrick Macnee, Clemens said in 2008: “He is the manipulator of the all the girls he’s ever been associated with. He gets them into situations for his own benefit.”

Eon Productions, maker of the James Bond film series, used The Avengers as a farm club. Honor Blackman, who played Cathy Gale on The Avengers, was signed to play Pussy Galore in 1964’s Goldfinger. After bringing aboard Diana Rigg as Emma Peel, the series even made a joke about Mrs. Gale sending Steed a card from Fort Knox.

Rigg, of course, ended up playing Tracy, Bond’s doomed bride, in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Macnee finally made his 007 appearance in 1985’s A View to a Kill. Going the other way, Joanna Lumley, who had a small part in Majesty’s, was the female lead in The New Avengers.

Here’s the 2008 interview with Clemens:

Lewis Collins, Professionals star who tried out for 007, dies

Lewis Collins, a star of the British television series The Professionals, has died at 67, according to obituaries by THE BBC and the DAILY MAIL. He also unsuccessfully tried out to play James Bond in the early 1980s.

The Professionals, created by Brian Clemens, concerned operatives of CI5, which was assigned to combat terrorism and other major crimes. Collins played William Bodie, a former paratrooper and SAS soldier who had a “rule-free approach to policing,” according to the Daily Mail’s obituary.

Both obits reference how Collins auditioned for the part of 007 in 1982, when it appeared Roger Moore might have departed the role for good. Each obit references a quote where Broccoli is supposed to have found Collins “too aggressive” to play Bond. Here’s the key passage in the BBC obituary:

“I was in Albert R Broccoli’s office for five minutes, but it was really over for me in seconds,” he is reported to have said.

“He’s expecting another Connery to walk through the door and there are few of them around.”

UPDATE (3:10 p.m.): The BBC has AN INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR IAN SHARP who worked with Collins a number of times. Sharp had this to say about Collins’s 007 audition:

Everybody agrees Lewis would have made a great James Bond. He had all the right qualities: He had the looks, he had the humour, he didn’t take himself too seriously.

(snip)
These days people would grab him with both hands. In those days, they wanted the smoothie type, like Roger Moore and, if you like, he was a Daniel Craig in a Roger Moore era.

Thanks to @bondmemes for pointing out the Ian Sharp interview on Twitter.

The Avengers: a half century of John Steed & Co.

Better late than never, we felt we should note this was the 50th anniversary of The Avengers, in which the English gentleman agent John Steed and his various associates battled forces that threatened the U.K.

Actually, when the show began in January 1961, Patrick Macnee, who played Steed, had second billing and Steed wasn’t yet in gentleman agent mode. Receiving top billing was Ian Hendry as Dr. David Keel. The show began with Keel’s financee being murdered. The mysterious Steed pops up and two proceed to avenge the death of the financee.

For the second season, Dr. Keel was gone and Macnee was now the clear star. Eventually, he’d partner with Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman), who favored leather clothing and was skilled at judo. Blackman went off to play Pussy Galore in 1964’s Goldfinger. Below, Cathy Gale tells Steed goodbye and the dialogue provides a hint of Blackman’s upcoming 007 role:

Diana Rigg took Blackman’s place as yet another “talented amateur,” Emma Peel. At this point, the U.S. television network ABC to import the U.K. series and the Steed-Peel combo clicked with American audiences. Also, the show apparently got a bigger budget. Production switched from videotape to film, freeing up the crew to shoot sequences outdoors and not just be confined to a studio. The original John Danworkth theme was discarded and a snappier theme, composed by Laurie Johnson, was recorded.

Macnee and Rigg had an appealing chemistry, helped along by scripts from the likes of Brian Clemens and Philip Levene. David McDaniel, who penned some of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. tie-in paperback novels worked Steed and Mrs. Peel into The Rainbow Affair, though the duo aren’t named.

However, after a couple of seasons, bigger things beckoned for Rigg. She, like her predecessor, would be the female lead in a James Bond movie, 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Another replacement, Tara King (Linda Thorson) rounded out the original show.

It’s hard to keep a good agent down. Macnee’s Steed had a return engagement in the 1970s in The New Avengers, this time with two partners, Gareth Hunt’s Mike Gambit (to take over some of the rough stuff from Steed) and Joanna Lumley as Purdey. The show was overseen by Clemens and Albert Fennell, who had produced the last few seasons of the original show. Laurie Johnson returned, composing a new theme. The New Avengers was shown by CBS in the U.S. as part of The CBS Late Movie. The New Avengers only lasted two seasons, though Diana Rigg did make a cameo as Mrs. Peel.

The Avengers was also something of a farm team for Eon Productions. Besides Blackman and Rigg, various character actors from the show got cast in Bond movies, such as Philip Locke (Vargas in Thunderball), Julian Glover (Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only) and James Villiers (Bill Tanner in For Your Eyes Only). And members of The Avengers crew, such as director of photography Alan Hume and art director Harry Pottle would get hired to work on Bond movies. Thus, it was appropriate that Macnee finally be cast in a 007 film, 1985’s A View To a Kill.

Inevitably, The Avengers would be considered for a feature film. The result was the uneven 1998 namesake film with Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman facing off against a villain played by Sean Connery. Macnee got a small voice-only cameo. Today, the original series remains fondly remembered while the film….well, the less said, the better.

Happy 50th, Mr. Steed. Here’s a look at the different main titles of The Avengers and The New Avengers:

The brains behind The Avengers awarded with the OBE

Brian Clemens, a writer and producer on The Avengers, recently received an Order of the British Empire.

According to thisTHIS STORY on the BBC’s Web site:

The main creative driving force behind The Avengers, The Professionals and many other successful television series and films has been appointed OBE.

Brian Clemens, who lives near Ampthill, Bedfordshire, has been honoured in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to broadcasting and drama.

Clemens wrote 32 episodes of The Avengers and another 17 of its 1970s revival, The New Avvengers, according tohis profile on IMDB.com.

Here’s the main titles to one of the episodes of The Avengers written by Clemens (b. 1931). It’s from the first season with Diana Rigg co-starring with Patrick Macnee. During this particular season Clemens was associate producer of the show. In the first color season, he’d get promoted to producer, a post he (along with Albert Fennell) held through the rest of the series. The pair would also produce the revival series.

We also give a shoutout to Wes Britton, who alerted us to Clemens getting the OBE.

UPDATE: Digging a little further back, here’s an opening and closing from earlier when Macnee co-starred with Honor Blackman on The Avengers. This episode was also written by Clemens.