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.

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

Other monks will meet their deaths here. And they too will have blackened fingers. And blackened tongues.

The Name of the Rose (1986) (SPOILERS) Umberto Eco wasn’t awfully impressed by Jean Jacques-Annaud’s adaptation of his novel – or “ palimpsest of Umberto Eco’s novel ” as the opening titles announce – to the extent that he nixed further movie versions of his work. Later, he amended that view, calling it “ a nice movie ”. He also, for balance, labelled The Name of the Rose his worst novel – “ I hate this book and I hope you hate it too ”. Essentially, he was begrudging its renown at the expense of his later “ superior ” novels. I didn’t hate the novel, although I do prefer the movie, probably because I saw it first and it was everything I wanted from a medieval Sherlock Holmes movie set in a monastery and devoted to forbidden books, knowledge and opinions.

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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