No, I haven’t killed anyone all week.

The Avengers

3.24: The Charmers

Steed’s identification as the perfect gentleman has been a gradual process for the show, although it may now seem it was never anything but. Signposts on the way include the in-awe butler of The Gilded Cage, but The Charmers fashions probably his most legendary representation to this point, in a Brian Clemens script, as he visits a charm school for killers and is instantly recognised as the peak of the proper.

This is also Warren Mitchell’s second appearance, as Russian boss Keller. His very broad appearances as Brodny would be forthcoming, something of The Avengers equivalent of Harry Mudd, and a similarly acquired taste. Here he’s less in the spotlight and more effective for it, as Keller and Steed nominally join forces to discover who has been tapping Russian agents (initially, he thought Steed was at it, but “No, I haven’t killed anyone all week”).

Keller’s entirely duplicitous while Steed is straight up, however (those dirty Russkies!) Mrs Gale is sent to work with Keller man Martin (John Barcoft) to find what is going on, but the latter is killed at the dentist (this is one of those where the presence of the dentist is rather irrelevant, but at least, unlike Trojan Horse, the whole thing is so absurd that it doesn’t really matter). Meanwhile, Steed is teamed not with a Russian agent but actress Kim Lawrence (the Blue Queen and Carry on… screamer Fenella Fielding, a more-than-effective match for Macnee).

Mitchell’s best moment, infectiously funny, finds Keller reminiscing about the murder of the Swede, when he removed the bottom from a lift (‘He laughed all the way down!”). There’s also an obvious-but-amusing fnar-fnar gag about the bullet Keller still carries; he was shot “In the Dardanelles”. The spy master gets a curiously ruthless demise, stabbed in the back by Fielding (her great grandma had a knife-throwing act).

Steed’s investigations lead him to a gentlemen’s outfitter (“I can see you’re Eton, sir”; he asks for a tie for The Old Irascible Fencing and Tottering Club, intending to do a spot of fencing and then drinking), with its expected air of insularity (“Vinkle. That’s a foreign name, isn’t it sir?”)

Mr Edgar: I mean, clearly, you could have no need of my services. The cut of your coat, sir, The run of your tie. I’m lost in admiration.

It’s Brian Oulton’s villainous Mr Edgar, head of the Academy of Charm for Aspiring Gentlemen, who is most impressed by Steed, however. You rather wish Clemens would have lingered on this longer, as it produces the episode’s best scenes and interactions. Sinisterly, the trainee killer gents are educated in etiquette by women in masks that give them an Auton-ish aspect.

Cathy meanwhile goes for a check-up, and surprise-surprise her gnashers are perfect (is that the vegetarian diet, the chain smoking or just being generally dazzling of intellect?) Where we meet dentist Frank Harrap and his assistant Vivian Pickles (a one-time Aunt Dahlia in Jeeves and Wooster), who are obviously up to no good, the latter doubling as the Auton lady. But, while Mrs Gale is given a masked fencing bout (usually a sign of a stunt man) at the conclusion, this is definitely Steed’s show. He even gets a better showing at the dentist, bringing Kim in for an emergency appointment with “We were on the baked Alaska. And then, a sudden twinge”.

Steed: I suppose he warned you to be on guard.

Kim: My mother did that, when I was twelve.

Fielding takes to the show like a natural, and has much more relaxed fun than Blackman’s character allows; the only surprising element is that Steed remains blissfully unaware of Kim’s actress status until Cathy sets him straight. Generally, this would easily slot into the Peel era, replete with memorably self-reflexive lines (Edgar introduces the short stab in the back, ‘Otherwise known as show business”), which is probably why it was remade as The Correct Way to Kill.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

This risotto is shmackin’, dude.

Stranger Things Season 4: Volume 1 (SPOILERS) I haven’t had cause, or the urge, to revisit earlier seasons of Stranger Things , but I’m fairly certain my (relatively) positive takes on the first two sequel seasons would adjust down somewhat if I did (a Soviet base under Hawkins? DUMB soft disclosure or not, it’s pretty dumb). In my Season Three review, I called the show “ Netflix’s best-packaged junk food. It knows not to outstay its welcome, doesn’t cause bloat and is disposable in mostly good ways ” I fairly certain the Duffer’s weren’t reading, but it’s as if they decided, as a rebuke, that bloat was the only way to go for Season Four. Hence episodes approaching (or exceeding) twice the standard length. So while the other points – that it wouldn’t stray from its cosy identity and seasons tend to merge in the memory – hold fast, you can feel the ambition of an expansive canvas faltering at the hurdle of Stranger Things ’ essential, curated, nostalgia-appeal inconsequentiality.

The Illumi-what-i?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (SPOILERS) In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he’s sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything more than a few scraps of stylistic flourish intact.

Is this supposed to be me? It’s grotesque.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) (SPOILERS) I didn’t hold out much hope for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent being more than moderately tolerable. Not so much because its relatively untested director and his co-writer are mostly known in the TV sphere (and not so much for anything anyone is raving about). Although, it has to be admitted, the finished movie flourishes a degree of digital flatness typical of small-screen productions (it’s fine, but nothing more). Rather, due to the already over-tapped meta-strain of celebs showing they’re good sports about themselves. When Spike Jonze did it with John Malkovich, it was weird and different. By the time we had JCVD , not so much. And both of them are pre-dated by Arnie in Last Action Hero (“ You brought me nothing but pain ” he is told by Jack Slater). Plus, it isn’t as if Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten have much in the way of an angle on Nic; the movie’s basically there to glorify “him”, give or take a few foibles, do

Whacking. I'm hell at whacking.

Witness (1985) (SPOILERS) Witness saw the advent of a relatively brief period – just over half a decade –during which Harrison Ford was willing to use his star power in an attempt to branch out. The results were mixed, and abruptly concluded when his typically too late to go where Daniel Day Lewis, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro had gone before (with at bare minimum Oscar-nominated results) – but not “ full retard ” – ended in derision with Regarding Henry . He retreated to the world of Tom Clancy, and it’s the point where his cachet began to crumble. There had always been a stolid quality beneath even his more colourful characters, but now it came to the fore. You can see something of that as John Book in Witness – despite his sole Oscar nom, it might be one of Ford’s least interesting performances of the 80s – but it scarcely matters, or that the screenplay (which won) is by turns nostalgic, reactionary, wistful and formulaic, as director Peter Weir, in his Hollywood debu

What’s so bad about being small? You’re not going to be small forever.

Innerspace (1987) There’s no doubt that Innerspace is a flawed movie. Joe Dante finds himself pulling in different directions, his instincts for comic subversion tempered by the need to play the romance plot straight. He tacitly acknowledges this on the DVD commentary for the film, where he notes Pauline Kael’s criticism that he was attempting to make a mainstream movie; and he was. But, as ever with Dante, it never quite turns out that way. Whereas his kids’ movies treat their protagonists earnestly, this doesn’t come so naturally with adults. I’m a bona fide devotee of Innerspace , but I can’t help but be conscious of its problems. For the most part Dante papers over the cracks; the movie hits certain keynotes of standard Hollywood prescription scripting. But his sensibility inevitably suffuses it. That, and human cartoon Martin Short (an ideal “leading man” for the director) ensure what is, at first glance just another “ Steven Spielberg Presents ” sci-fi/fantas

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.

All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

Watership Down (1978) (SPOILERS) I only read Watership Down recently, despite having loved the film from the first, and I was immediately impressed with how faithful, albeit inevitably compacted, Martin Rosen’s adaptation is. It manages to translate the lyrical, mythic and metaphysical qualities of Richard Adams’ novel without succumbing to dumbing down or the urge to cater for a broader or younger audience. It may be true that parents are the ones who get most concerned over the more disturbing elements of the picture but, given the maturity of the content, it remains a surprise that, as with 2001: A Space Odyssey (which may on the face of it seem like an odd bedfellow), this doesn’t garner a PG certificate. As the makers noted, Watership Down is at least in part an Exodus story, but the biblical implications extend beyond Hazel merely leading his fluffle to the titular promised land. There is a prevalent spiritual dimension to this rabbit universe, one very much

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

Get away from my burro!

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) (SPOILERS) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is beloved by so many of the cinematic firmament’s luminaries – Stanley Kubrick, Sam Raimi, , Paul Thomas Anderson and who knows maybe also WS, Vince Gilligan, Spike Lee, Daniel Day Lewis; Oliver Stone was going to remake it – not to mention those anteriorly influential Stone Roses, that it seems foolhardy to suggest it isn’t quite all that. There’s no faulting the performances – a career best Humphrey Bogart, with director John Huston’s dad Walter stealing the movie from under him – but the greed-is-bad theme is laid on a little thick, just in case you were a bit too dim to get it yourself the first time, and Huston’s direction may be right there were it counts for the dramatics, but it’s a little too relaxed when it comes to showing the seams between Mexican location and studio.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls… dyin’ time’s here!

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Time was kind to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome . As in, it was such a long time since I’d seen the “final chapter” of the trilogy, it had dwindled in my memory to the status of an “alright but not great” sequel. I’d half-expected to have positive things to say along the lines of it being misunderstood, or being able to see what it was trying for but perhaps failing to quite achieve. Instead, I re-discovered a massive turkey that is really a Mad Max movie in name only (appropriately, since Max was an afterthought). This is the kind of picture fans of beloved series tend to loathe; when a favourite character returns but without the qualities or tone that made them adored in the first place (see Indiana Jones in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , or John McClane in the last two Die Hard s). Thunderdome stinks even more than the methane fuelling Bartertown. I hadn’t been aware of the origins of Thunderdome until recently, mainly because I was

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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