Don’t mistake appearances for the reality, baby.

The Avengers

3.19: The Wringer

A first-rate little screws tightener, as Steed not only comes under suspicion but is also found guilty of treason. He’s accused of exposing the Carinthia pipeline (a route for spies on the Austro-Hungarian border), leading to the deaths of six agents. While The Wringer is guilty of a sin common in the series – having the villains discuss their plan and reveal themselves early on, when there might be more to gain from keeping motives and machinations unclear – there’s much to enjoy here, including Steed coming under full-on psychotropic conditioning and a marvellously deranged performance from Terence Lodge (as the titular character).

Charles: The disposal of agents who have outlived their usefulness is not a matter we concern ourselves with – very closely.

Paul Whitsun-Jones returns for the second and final time as Steed’s boss Charles, and he’s entirely lacking in endearing qualities, particularly since he’s so quick to find our hero guilty and have him sent to his death, merely on the say-so of Anderson (Peter Sallis; Wallace, of course, some dreadful long-running comedy about hurtling down hills in bath tubs, and Penley in The Ice Warriors). Who has been conditioned by the Wringer and his off-message associates at the organisation’s now-rogue highland interrogation centre.

The Wringer: Time is what you care to make it, baby. Reality is merely a causal affair; we all know that. In reality, there is only the void.

Lodge (three roles in Doctor Who, two of them directed by producer Barry Letts who plays Oliver here, most notably as Moss in Planet of the Spiders) was memorable but a little erratic in the opening scene of Man with Two Shadows, required to switch multiple personalities over the stretch a few minutes. Here, though, he’s in full flow, relishing the chance to dive into a sinisterly enthusiastic beatnik operative with a penchant for hipster patois and mind expansion, questioning the nature of reality, dropping Wittgenstein into conversation, inducing his only little MK-Ultra, and crowing that “We could go on forever. No one in the service trusts each other”.

The Wringer: Don’t mistake appearances for the reality, baby.

Sallis is also very good, as a man who has lost his memory in resistance to the implanted lie of Steed being a traitor; Steed refers to Anderson as reliable, although he shouldn’t be, since he’s lousy shot and can’t swim. Also on hand is Gerald Sim (the Rector from To the Manor Born as well as four other Avengers appearances, including one in The New Avengers).

We’ve had Steed come under suspicion earlier this season in The Nutshell, and Martin Woodhouse’s teleplay wisely doesn’t labour the interrogation side. Rather, it’s a case of Steed being assaulted by sound and vision recordings, including familiarly psychonautically swirling concentric patterns, lapping waves, explosive assaults, and manifest darkness accompanied by sinister pulsating sounds.

If there’s a weakness, it’s that Cathy infiltrates and springs him remarkably easily (albeit she gets shot in the arm, and they come up through a convincing storm drain set). It’s nice to see her righteous defence of Steed, however (“If there’s any clearing up to be done, I suggest it’s on your side” and asked where Steed is, she rebukes “I imagine he’s doing your job for you”).

A memorable ending too (well, aside from the subsequent business of Cathy struggling to pour tea), as the clearly unhinged Wringer is unapologetic for his behaviour, repeating the mantra “Question of time, isn’t it? Question of time, it’s all a question of time”. One of the best of the season.

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

Comments

I never strangled a chicken in my life!

Rope (1948) (SPOILERS) Rope doesn’t initially appear to have been one of the most venerated of Hitchcocks, but it has gone through something of a rehabilitation over the years, certainly since it came back into circulation during the 80s. I’ve always rated it highly; yes, the seams of it being, essentially, a formal experiment on the director’s part, are evident, but it’s also an expert piece of writing that uses our immediate knowledge of the crime to create tension throughout; what we/the killers know is juxtaposed with the polite dinner party they’ve thrown in order to wallow in their superiority.

They'll think I've lost control again and put it all down to evolution.

Time Bandits (1981) (SPOILERS) Terry Gilliam had co-directed previously, and his solo debut had visual flourish on its side, but it was with Time Bandits that Gilliam the auteur was born. The first part of his Trilogy of Imagination, it remains a dazzling work – as well as being one of his most successful – rich in theme and overflowing with ideas while resolutely aimed at a wide (family, if you like) audience. Indeed, most impressive about Time Bandits is that there’s no evidence of self-censoring here, of attempting to make it fit a certain formula, format or palatable template.

You must have hopes, wishes, dreams.

Brazil (1985) (SPOILERS) Terry Gilliam didn’t consider Brazil the embodiment of a totalitarian nightmare it is often labelled as. His 1984½ (one of the film’s Fellini-riffing working titles) was “ the Nineteen Eighty-Four for 1984 ”, in contrast to Michael Anderson’s Nineteen Eighty-Four from 1948. This despite Gilliam famously boasting never to have read the Orwell’s novel: “ The thing that intrigues me about certain books is that you know them even though you’ve never read them. I guess the images are archetypal ”. Or as Pauline Kael observed, Brazil is to Nineteen Eighty-Four as “ if you’d just heard about it over the years and it had seeped into your visual imagination ”. Gilliam’s suffocating system isn’t unflinchingly cruel and malevolently intolerant of individuality; it is, in his vision of a nightmare “future”, one of evils spawned by the mechanisms of an out-of-control behemoth: a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. And yet, that is not really, despite how indulgently and glee

Oh, you got me right in the pantaloons, partner.

The Party (1968) (SPOILERS) Blake Edwards’ semi-improvisational reunion with Peter Sellers is now probably best known for – I was going to use an elephant-in-the-room gag, but at least one person already went there – Sellers’ “brown face”. And it isn’t a decision one can really defend, even by citing The Party ’s influence on Bollywood. Satyajit Ray had also reportedly been considering working with Sellers… and then he saw the film. One can only assume he’d missed similar performances in The Millionairess and The Road to Hong Kong ; in the latter case, entirely understandable, if not advisable. Nevertheless, for all the flagrant stereotyping, Sellers’ bungling Hrundi V Bakshi is a very likeable character, and indeed, it’s the piece’s good-natured, soft centre – his fledgling romance with Claudine Longet’s Michele – that sees The Party through in spite of its patchy, hit-and-miss quality.

I'm an old ruin, but she certainly brings my pulse up a beat or two.

The Paradine Case (1947) (SPOILERS) Hitchcock wasn’t very positive about The Paradine Case , his second collaboration with Gregory Peck, but I think he’s a little harsh on a picture that, if it doesn’t quite come together dramatically, nevertheless maintains interest on the basis of its skewed take on the courtroom drama. Peck’s defence counsel falls for his client, Alida Valli’s accused (of murder), while wife Ann Todd wilts dependably and masochistically on the side-lines.

A herbal enema should fix you up.

Never Say Never Again (1983) (SPOILERS) There are plenty of sub-par Bond s in the official (Eon) franchise, several of them even weaker than this opportunistic remake of Thunderball , but they do still feel like Bond movies. Never Say Never Again , despite – or possibly because he’s part of it – featuring the much-vaunted, title-referencing return of the Sean Connery to the lead role, only ever feels like a cheap imitation. And yet, reputedly, it cost more than the same year’s Rog outing Octopussy .

Miss Livingstone, I presume.

Stage Fright (1950) (SPOILERS) This one has traditionally taken a bit of a bruising, for committing a cardinal crime – lying to the audience. More specifically, lying via a flashback, through which it is implicitly assumed the truth is always relayed. As Richard Schickel commented, though, the egregiousness of the action depends largely on whether you see it as a flaw or a brilliant act of daring: an innovation. I don’t think it’s quite that – not in Stage Fright ’s case anyway; the plot is too ordinary – but I do think it’s a picture that rewards revisiting knowing the twist, since there’s much else to enjoy it for besides.

Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know, if you ripped the fronts off houses, you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it?

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) (SPOILERS) I’m not sure you could really classify Shadow of a Doubt as underrated, as some have. Not when it’s widely reported as Hitchcock’s favourite of his films. Underseen might be a more apt sobriquet, since it rarely trips off the lips in the manner of his best-known pictures. Regardless of the best way to categorise it, it’s very easy to see why the director should have been so quick to recognise Shadow of a Doubt 's qualities, even if some of those qualities are somewhat atypical.

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.

Sir, I’m the Leonardo of Montana.

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013) (SPOILERS) The title of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s second English language film and second adaptation announces a fundamentally quirky beast. It is, therefore, right up its director’s oeuvre. His films – even Alien Resurrection , though not so much A Very Long Engagement – are infused with quirk. He has a style and sensibility that is either far too much – all tics and affectations and asides – or delightfully offbeat and distinctive, depending on one’s inclinations. I tend to the latter, but I wasn’t entirely convinced by the trailers for The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet ; if there’s one thing I would bank on bringing out the worst in Jeunet, it’s a story focussing on an ultra-precocious child. Yet for the most part the film won me over. Spivet is definitely a minor distraction, but one that marries an eccentric bearing with a sense of heart that veers to the affecting rather than the chokingly sentimental. Appreciation for

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