The Avengers
2.16: Warlock
A genuinely
supernatural episode, one of the series’ big no-nos, for some fans, your
appreciation for Warlock will likely rest
entirely on whether you accept its premise. I regard it as one of the
highlights of the second season, although the common verdict appears to be that
it’s something of a disappointment.
Peter
Hammond was one of the series’ best directors, and he pulls out the stylistic
stops to make the most of Doreen Montgomery’s teleplay. Montgomery had a long
career as writer for the big screen from the late ‘30s to the late ‘50s; this
was her only contribution to the show, in an episode originally designed as the
introduction for Cathy Gale’s character. There are liberally evident signs of
this, most obviously Steed visiting her at the Natural History Museum, where
she is studying skulls.
Steed: I know
the face forget the name. Ah yes, poor Yorick. I knew him, you know, a fellow
of infinite jest.
Cathy: More
than can be said for you.
The
Steed-Cathy repartee is firmly in place right off the bat, as is her status as
a font of all knowledge (“Now, you know
about black magic, don’t you?” – including witchcraft, superstition and blood
rites). Steed has discovered An Occult
Grimoire at the home of this friend Peter Neville (Alban Blakelock, giving
a fine transfixed performance, accompanied by simply-but-strikingly superimposed
sparkly objects). Neville was, this being The
Avengers, due to attend a Missile Committee meeting (always with the
missiles!), but is bedbound, diagnosed with severe shock.
It’s up to
Cathy to infiltrate the cause of his malaise, a black magic circle presided
over by Peter Arne’s Cosmo Gallion. Arne, who gives a highly memorable,
charismatic performance, was originally intended to appear in the Doctor Who story Frontios, but was murdered shortly before filming began. Cosmo’s
services are for hire, in this case by Markel (John Hollis, Lobot in The Empire Strikes Back, and Sondeergard
– who rocks – in The Mutants, as well
as appearing in later Avengers The Cybernauts, The Superlative Seven and Legacy
of Death).
While the
episode hedges its bets with regard to the reality of magic (“It’s not a question of will, but of faith”),
there’s little doubt what’s depicted is at very least psychically effected.
Neville is sent into a spin, Cathy is drawn to the coven (even though she
professes not to have been under the influence, she does appear to have arisen at the appointed, incantatory time).
Cathy informs Steed that psychology plays a big part (but not all?) in warlocks
exerting a hold over their victims, stating that one could exert influence at a
distance, and “quite probably” make
someone do what they ordered.
Montgomery’s
teleplay picks up on the essentials of Crowleyian magic ((“Do ast thou wilt is the whole of the law”), but it’s softened slightly
through Cosmo’s credentials as “an
authority on paranormal psychology”. He’s an expert in “the study of trance states, hypnosis,
telepathy, that sort of thing”. The magic community is obviously a small
one, since Cosmo has read Cathy’s monograph on voodoo, and despite warning her
with regard to the legality of joining black magic groups, he welcomes her into
his own magic circle. Naturally, he’s taken with her, offering to cast her
horoscope (she was born at midnight on 5/10/30, a half decade younger than
Blackman herself)
Cosmo: Mr Markel,
you’re really a very stupid man. Like all of your kind, you only believe what
you can see and what you can touch.
Markel, who
is after a formula for a new propellant (another propellant!), isn’t really
interested in Cosmo’s methods, though, only his results, which leads to the
latter unreservedly dismissing his idiocy (“Your
methods are certainly effective, Markel. He’s dead” Cosmo notes after
Markel aggressively attempts to discern why Neville’s brief case is absent the all-important
papers). And, when Markel demands his money back, threatening Cosmo, the
chrome-domed thug is soon on the receiving end of a heart attack administered by
means a voodoo doll.
Cosmo is
also intent on bringing Cathy to his magical beck-and-call (“Will with me, Cathy Gale”), considering
her perfect for the Ritual of Asmodeus (the demon of lust, responsible for
twisting people’s sexual desires, so one guesses the episode wouldn’t have gone
out if Cosmo had brought the ritual to a successful head). As it is, there’s
much writhing, chanting, and vigorously ecstatic gyration from a frenzied Julia
(Pat Spender). So it’s a bit disappointing that events resolve themselves so
perfunctorily (the name of the game for the show at this point). Cathy and
Steed are surrounded, but Cosmo conveniently drops dead; his exertions required
complete faith, so when he failed it destroyed him.
Steed is
rigorously facile, throughout, chatting up a barmaid by telling her fortune (“Here’s to palmistry”) and running foul
of Cathy (“You seem to think this is
something to joke about. I saw too much of this sort of thing when I was in
Africa, Steed” to which he responds levelly “I am only interested in who killed Neville”). His debonair
attendance of Cosmo’s “very elementary”
lecture, posing as a physicist, doesn’t manage to convince us that he’s a
devotee, which doesn’t escape Cosmo’s notice either (“Well, for a start, his aura is wrong for a man of science”). It’s
probably appropriate then that, for the third episode in a row, Cathy is centre
stage. Steed is unmasked (or unhooded), tied up, and when he escapes, Cathy has
already brought matters to a head.
Warlock features the penultimate appearance
of One Ten (in the Studio Canal DVD release order, which I’m following),
sharing pints in the pub with Steed, both in matching bowlers (“Myrtle, is this the bottom of the barrel?”),
an additional incongruity with subject matter that starts with hexes and ends
in a full-blooded occult ceremony. The close-out finds Steed and Cathy joking
about finding something relaxing to do where someone else does all the work for
a change. Such as boxing; Warlock’s
certainly far from straightforward pugilism, a confident and sprightly change of
tone and subject matter for the show.
