Steed, what do you know about faith healers?

The Avengers

2.18: Box of Tricks

There are some decent ideas in Box of Tricks, with Steed looking into the leakage of NATO secrets from the vicinity of wheelchair-bound General Sutherland (Maurice Hedley). Not least the dual-play title (the magician’s and the conman’s). Unfortunately, the two ideas don’t really connect and the results aren’t terribly involving.

It’s also, even for The Avengers, slightly difficult to swallow the connections drawn by Peter Ling (his final of three scripts for the series; Ling also wrote The Mind Robber for Doctor Who) and Edward Rhodes. I can’t see any good reason – other than it seemed like an idea at the time – for Gallam to be in league with stage magician Gerry Weston (Ian Curry). And the the deaths in the story – both of Weston’s assistants wind up dead, Venus concludes in the coda, because they found out what he was up to – seem like an afterthought built on having a dramatic pre-credits teaser. It beggars belief that, after two dead assistants, Weston wasn’t Number One Suspect.

Steed: There. Do you think this tape recorder has healing properties?

Then there’s the rather casual manner in which a shoebox-sized object, shoved down the back of General Sutherland’s wheelchair, isn’t discovered and must have a very long battery life to pick up the necessary meetings he’s attending. Dr Gallam’s (Edgar Wreford) ruse is possibly partly based on the orgone craze as a curative/energising method (Honor Blackman’s Goldfinger co-star Sean Connery reputedly had his own such chamber), and his hoodwinking of the well-meaning Kathleen is all-too believable.

Kathleen repeats devotedly that Gallam has “cured hundreds of cases” with his magic box, and all one needs is faith; the episode appears generally jaundiced regarding notions of non-traditional medicine, albeit Steed charitably offers that there may be something in it, referencing psychosomatic disorders.

Weston: A touch of oriental magic, and a dash of western charm.

Gallam and Weston are clearly reliant on their subjects being dopes, and make no effort to hide their activities from Kathleen when they think they have the crucial tape recording (how do they know it gives them the goods?) As such, it takes Steed an unaccountable age to wrap things up, but he’s evidently not on form.

Venus: Nobody’s got any reasons to want to murder me, have they?

He appears very relaxed about Venus, who seems like the dumbest sidekick ever since she is ever-blithely unaware of what Steed is letting her in for (shouldn’t she have wised up by now?), taking on assistant duties, given the nasty things that befall anyone entering that particular box of tricks.

Julie Stevens sports a very nice new haircut, and gets her de rigueur musical numbers, but whenever I see it’s one of hers, I’m disappointed it isn’t a Mrs Gale episode instead. The supporting cast, particularly Jane Barrett as Kathleen (her self-remonstration, even thinking Gallam might be interested in her when he asks her to dinner, is quite sad) and Maurice Hedley as the General are very good.

Denise: If that’s all you’re interested in, why don’t you go and have a look at the cabinet yourself, it’s back stage.

Steed: Is it really? Thank you, I will.

Steed poses as a masseur, and seems pretty accomplished at the task, although his tact isn’t first rate. He incurs the wrath of new assistant Denise (April Olrich) when he’s more interested in talking about the box than chatting her up, and also has Henriette (Jacqueline Jones) interested (she ends up having to avoid other, even older men). He isn’t especially subtle probing the General for information either. Alarmingly, Steed also likes hanging around in basements behind drapes, waiting to give Venus a terrible fright (“What’s the matter, my dear?”)

Later he masquerades as very rich, very sorry hypochondriac Thackery, again not that smart when he’s dropping in on the Sutherlands as masseur Steed; it’s no wonder Gallam finds out so easily. He also, inexcusably, sits through an entire magic act before going to look at the (now removed) box Venus has stashed away. Still, he lets the punches fly with appropriate deftness, there being no Cathy about to do it for him.

Not a particularly stunning episode then. One with potential, but it’s squandered through nonsensical plotting and unconvincing motivation.

Comments

Mondo bizarro. No offence man, but you’re in way over your head.

The X-Files 8.7: Via Negativa I wasn’t as down on the last couple of seasons of The X-Files as most seemed to be. For me, the mythology arc walked off a cliff somewhere around the first movie, with only the occasional glimmer of something worthwhile after that. So the fact that the show was tripping over itself with super soldiers and Mulder’s abduction/his and Scully’s baby (although we all now know it wasn’t, sheesh ), anything to stretch itself beyond breaking point in the vain hope viewers would carry on dangling, didn’t really make much odds. Of course, it finally snapped with the wretched main arc when the show returned, although the writing was truly on the wall with Season 9 finale The Truth . For the most part, though, I found 8 and 9 more watchable than, say 5 or 7. They came up with their fair share of engaging standalones, one of which I remembered to be Via Negativa .

Isn’t it true, it’s easier to be a holy man on the top of a mountain?

The Razor’s Edge (1984) (SPOILERS) I’d hadn’t so much a hankering as an idle interest in finally getting round to seeing Bill Murray’s passion project. Partly because it seemed like such an odd fit. And partly because passion isn’t something you tend to associate with any Murray movie project, involving as it usually does laidback deadpan. Murray, at nigh-on peak fame – only cemented by the movie he agreed to make to make this movie – embarks on a serious-acting-chops dramatic project, an adaptation of W Somerset Maugham’s story of one man’s journey of spiritual self-discovery. It should at least be interesting, shouldn’t it? A real curio? Alas, not. The Razor’s Edge is desperately turgid.

You have done well to keep so much hair, when so many’s after it.

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Schnell, you stinkers! Come on, raus!

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My Doggett would have called that crazy.

The X-Files 9.4: 4-D I get the impression no one much liked Agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish), but I felt, for all the sub-Counsellor Troi, empath twiddling that dogged her characterisation, she was a mostly positive addition to the series’ last two years (of its main run). Undoubtedly, pairing her with Doggett, in anticipation of Gillian Anderson exiting just as David Duchovny had – you rewatch these seasons and you wonder where her head was at in hanging on – made for aggressively facile gender-swapped conflict positions on any given assignment. And generally, I’d have been more interested in seeing how two individuals sympathetic to the cause – her and Mulder – might have got on. Nevertheless, in an episode like 4-D you get her character, and Doggett’s, at probably their best mutual showing.

It’s not as if she were a… maniac, a raving thing.

Psycho (1960) (SPOILERS) One of cinema’s most feted and most studied texts, and for good reason. Even if the worthier and more literate psycho movie of that year is Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom . One effectively ended a prolific director’s career and the other made its maker more in demand than ever, even if he too would discover he had peaked with his populist fear flick. Pretty much all the criticism and praise of Psycho is entirely valid. It remains a marvellously effective low-budget shocker, one peppered with superb performances and masterful staging. It’s also fairly rudimentary in tone, character and psychology. But those negative elements remain irrelevant to its overall power.

You’re a disgrace, sir... Weren’t you at Harrow?

Our Man in Marrakesh aka Bang! Bang! You’re Dead (1966) (SPOILERS) I hadn’t seen this one in more than three decades, and I had in mind that it was a decent spy spoof, well populated with a selection of stalwart British character actors in supporting roles. Well, I had the last bit right. I wasn’t aware this came from the stable of producer Harry Alan Towers, less still of his pedigree, or lack thereof, as a sort of British Roger Corman (he tried his hand at Star Wars with The Shape of Things to Come and Conan the Barbarian with Gor , for example). More legitimately, if you wish to call it that, he was responsible for the Christopher Lee Fu Manchu flicks. Our Man in Marrakesh – riffing overtly on Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana in title – seems to have in mind the then popular spy genre and its burgeoning spoofs, but it’s unsure which it is; too lightweight to work as a thriller and too light on laughs to elicit a chuckle.

I tell you, it saw me! The hanged man’s asphyx saw me!

The Asphyx (1972) (SPOILERS) There was such a welter of British horror from the mid 60s to mid 70s, even leaving aside the Hammers and Amicuses, that it’s easy to lose track of them in the shuffle. This one, the sole directorial effort of Peter Newbrook (a cameraman for David Lean, then a cinematographer), has a strong premise and a decent cast, but it stumbles somewhat when it comes to taking that premise any place interesting. On the plus side, it largely eschews the grue. On the minus, directing clearly wasn’t Newbrook’s forte, and even aided by industry stalwart cinematographer Freddie Young (also a go-to for Lean), The Aspyhx is stylistically rather flat.

The best thing in the world for the inside of a man or a woman is the outside of a horse.

Marnie (1964) (SPOILERS) Hitch in a creative ditch. If you’ve read my Vertigo review, you’ll know I admired rather than really liked the picture many fete as his greatest work. Marnie is, in many ways, a redux, in the way De Palma kept repeating himself in the early 80s only significantly less delirious and… well, compelling. While Marnie succeeds in commanding the attention fitfully, it’s usually for the wrong reasons. And Hitch, digging his heels in as he strives to fashion a star against public disinterest – he failed to persuade Grace Kelly out of retirement for Marnie Rutland – comes entirely adrift with his leads.

You know what I sometimes wish? I sometimes wish I were ordinary like you. Ordinary and dead like all the others.

Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) (SPOILERS) Bryan Forbes’ adaptation of Mark McShane’s 1961’s novel has been much acclaimed. It boasts a distinctive storyline and effective performances from its leads, accompanied by effective black-and-white cinematography from Gerry Turpin and a suitably atmospheric score from John Barry. I’m not sure Forbes makes the most of the material, however, as he underlines Séance on a Wet Afternoon ’s inherently theatrical qualities at the expense of its filmic potential.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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