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.

Comments

I just hope my death makes more cents than my life.

Joker (2019)
(SPOILERS) So the murder sprees didn’t happen, and a thousand puff pieces desperate to fan the flames of such events and then told-ya-so have fallen flat on their faces. The biggest takeaway from Joker is not that the movie is an event, when once that seemed plausible but not a given, but that any mainstream press perspective on the picture appears unable to divorce its quality from its alleged or actual politics. Joker may be zeitgeisty, but isn’t another Taxi Driver in terms of cultural import, in the sense that Taxi Driver didn’t have a Taxi Driver in mind when Paul Schrader wrote it. It is, if you like, faux-incendiary, and can only ever play out on that level. It might be more accurately described as a grubbier, grimier (but still polished and glossy) The Talented Ripley, the tale of developing psychopathy, only tailored for a cinemagoing audience with few options left outside of comic book fare.

Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.

You guys sure like watermelon.

The Irishman aka I Heard You Paint Houses (2019)
(SPOILERS) Perhaps, if Martin Scorsese hadn’t been so opposed to the idea of Marvel movies constituting cinema, The Irishman would have been a better film. It’s a decent film, assuredly. A respectable film, definitely. But it’s very far from being classic. And a significant part of that is down to the usually assured director fumbling the execution. Or rather, the realisation. I don’t know what kind of crazy pills the ranks of revered critics have been taking so as to recite as one the mantra that you quickly get used to the de-aging effects so intrinsic to its telling – as Empire magazine put it, “you soon… fuggadaboutit” – but you don’t. There was no point during The Irishman that I was other than entirely, regrettably conscious that a 75-year-old man was playing the title character. Except when he was playing a 75-year-old man.

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…

So you want me to be half-monk, half-hitman.

Casino Royale (2006)
(SPOILERS) Despite the doubts and trepidation from devotees (too blonde, uncouth etc.) that greeted Daniel Craig’s casting as Bond, and the highly cynical and low-inspiration route taken by Eon in looking to Jason Bourne's example to reboot a series that had reached a nadir with Die Another Day, Casino Royale ends up getting an enormous amount right. If anything, its failure is that it doesn’t push far enough, so successful is it in disarming itself of the overblown set pieces and perfunctory plotting that characterise the series (even at its best), elements that would resurge with unabated gusto in subsequent Craig excursions.

For the majority of its first two hours, Casino Royale is top-flight entertainment, with returning director Martin Campbell managing to exceed his excellent work reformatting Bond for the ‘90s. That the weakest sequence (still good, mind) prior to the finale is a traditional “big” (but not too big) action set piece involving an attempt to…

This popularity of yours. Is there a trick to it?

The Two Popes (2019)
(SPOILERS) Ricky Gervais’ Golden Globes joke, in which he dropped The Two Popes onto a list of the year’s films about paedophiles, rather preceded the picture’s Oscar prospects (three nominations), but also rather encapsulated the conversation currently synonymous with the forever tainted Roman Catholic church; it’s the first thing anyone thinks of. And let’s face it, Jonathan Pryce’s unamused response to the gag could have been similarly reserved for the fate of his respected but neglected film. More people will have heard Ricky’s joke than will surely ever see the movie. Which, aside from a couple of solid lead performances, probably isn’t such an omission.

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

I'm reliable, I'm a very good listener, and I'm extremely funny.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
(SPOILERS) When I wrote my 23 to see in 2019, I speculated that James Cameron might be purposefully giving his hand-me-downs to lesser talents because he hubristically didn’t want anyone making a movie that was within a spit of the proficiency we’ve come to expect from him. Certainly, Robert Rodriguez and Tim Miller are leagues beneath Kathryn Bigelow, Jimbo’s former spouse and director of his Strange Days screenplay. Miller’s no slouch when it comes to action – which is what these movies are all about, let’s face it – but neither is he a craftsman, so all those reviews attesting that Terminator: Dark Fate is the best in the franchise since Terminator 2: Judgment Day may be right, but there’s a considerable gulf between the first sequel (which I’m not that big a fan of) and this retcon sequel to that sequel.

The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.

Look, the last time I was told the Germans had gone, it didn't end well.

1917 (2019)
(SPOILERS) When I first heard the premise of Sam Mendes’ Oscar-bait World War I movie – co-produced by Amblin Partners, as Spielberg just loves his sentimental war carnage – my first response was that it sounded highly contrived, and that I’d like to know how, precisely, the story Mendes’ granddad told him would bear any relation to the events he’d be depicting. And just why he felt it would be appropriate to honour his relative’s memory via a one-shot gimmick. None of that has gone away on seeing the film. It’s a technical marvel, and Roger Deakins’ cinematography is, as you’d expect, superlative, but that mastery rather underlines that 1917 is all technique, that when it’s over and you get a chance to draw your breath, the experience feels a little hollow, a little cynical and highly calculated, and leaves you wondering what, if anything, Mendes was really trying to achieve, beyond an edge-of-the-seat (near enough) first-person actioner.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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