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

We live in a twilight world.

Tenet (2020)
(SPOILERS) I’ve endured a fair few confusingly-executed action sequences in movies – more than enough, actually – but I don’t think I’ve previously had the odd experience of being on the edge of my seat during one while simultaneously failing to understand its objectives and how those objectives are being attempted. Which happened a few times during Tenet. If I stroll over to the Wiki page and read the plot synopsis, it is fairly explicable (fairly) but as a first dive into this Christopher Nolan film, I frequently found it, if not impenetrable, then most definitely opaque.

She was addicted to Tums for a while.

Marriage Story (2019)
(SPOILERS) I don’t tend to fall heavily for Noah Baumbach fare. He’s undoubtedly a distinctive voice – even if his collaborations with Wes Anderson are the least of that director’s efforts – but his devotion to an exclusive, rarefied New York bubble becomes ever more off-putting with each new project. And ever more identifiable as being a lesser chronicler of the city’s privileged quirks than his now disinherited forbear Woody Allen, who at his peak mastered a balancing act between the insightful, hilarious and self-effacing. Marriage Story finds Baumbach going yet again where Woody went before, this time brushing up against the director’s Ingmar Bergman fixation.

You can’t climb a ladder, no. But you can skip like a goat into a bar.

Juno and the Paycock (1930)
(SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s second sound feature. Such was the lustre of this technological advance that a wordy play was picked. By Sean O’Casey, upon whom Hitchcock based the prophet of doom at the end of The Birds. Juno and the Paycock, set in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, begins as a broad comedy of domestic manners, but by the end has descended into full-blown Greek (or Catholic) tragedy. As such, it’s an uneven but still watchable affair, even if Hitch does nothing to disguise its stage origins.

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

James Bond. You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.

Moonraker (1979)
Depending upon your disposition, and quite possibly age, Moonraker is either the Bond film that finally jumped the shark or the one that is most gloriously redolent of Roger Moore’s knowing take on the character. Many Bond aficionados will no doubt utter its name with thinly disguised contempt, just as they will extol with gravity how Timothy Dalton represented a masterful return to the core values of the series. If you regard For Your Eyes Only as a refreshing return to basics after the excesses of the previous two entries, and particularly the space opera grandstanding of this one, it’s probably fair to say you don’t much like Roger Moore’s take on Bond.

I mean, I am just a dumb bunny, but, we are good at multiplying.

Zootropolis (2016)
(SPOILERS) The key to Zootropolis’ creative success isn’t so much the conceit of its much-vaunted allegory regarding prejudice and equality, or – conversely – the fun to be had riffing on animal stereotypes (simultaneously clever and obvious), or even the appealing central duo voiced by Ginnifier Goodwin (as first rabbit cop Judy Hopps) and Jason Bateman (fox hustler Nick Wilde). Rather, it’s coming armed with that rarity for an animation; a well-sustained plot that doesn’t devolve into overblown set pieces or rest on the easy laurels of musical numbers and montages.

Anything can happen in Little Storping. Anything at all.

The Avengers 2.22: Murdersville
Brian Clemens' witty take on village life gone bad is one of the highlights of the fifth season. Inspired by Bad Day at Black Rock, one wonders how much Murdersville's premise of unsettling impulses lurking beneath an idyllic surface were set to influence both Straw Dogs and The Wicker Mana few years later (one could also suggest it premeditates the brand of backwoods horrors soon to be found in American cinema from the likes of Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper).

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 system when Burton did it (even…

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.

Doctor, eh? You’re not in the best of shape yourself, though, are you?

Doctor Who Season 26 – Worst to Best
I’m not a big Seventh Doctor fan. For me, Doctor Who pretty much ended with Season 23 (and not because it was awful: see here). Yes, there have been a few nu-Who reprieves (mostly notably Matt Smith’s first season), but the McCoy era flaunted an abundance of sins, from a lead who wasn’t up to snuff, to a script-editor messaging his social conscience wrapped in a breeze block (or bilge bag), to production values that made any given earlier era look absurdly lavish in comparison. And then there was the “masterplan” (which at least lends Season 24 a rather innocuous and relatively inoffensive quality by contrast).

Nevertheless, on the occasions I do return to the era, I’m always minded to give it a fair shake. And while that resolve inevitably crumbles within minutes, under the duress of cold harsh reality, it has, at times, led to a positive reappraisal (The Happiness Patrol, and, to an extent, perhaps unfathomably, Time and the Rani). So we’ll see ho…

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog