This is an imitation. Danger of instant death.

The Avengers

3.16: The Medicine Men

First broadcast on the same date as that more universally known medicine man (courtesy Joseph Lister), Doctor Who, this Mac Hulke script’s serious tone isn’t entirely justified by an unconvincing fiendish plot, as Steed and Cathy investigate imitation products (patent soap, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics) produced by Willis-Sopwith Pharmaceutical Company. It’s one of those episodes where the jigsaw piece elements don’t really fit with each other, and lacks sufficient sparkle to make you want to tie them all together.

The opening takes place in a Turkish bath, but its only connection to anything is that the victims go there to wash the paint off after a hard day modelling for artist Frank Leeson (Harold Innocent, who played Gilbert M in The Happiness Patrol). Leeson’s a particularly nasty piece of work, who for a while looks like he may be the mastermind (as with The Gilded Cage, this one keeps the fineries of the plot, or more precisely the perpetrators, elusive; it’s an incremental process, with us first thinking it’s Frank, then Miss Dowell, and finally Geoffrey Willis).

The criminals’ rather hopeful scheme is to ferment anti-British sentiment in the country of Karim, where fake products sell like hot cakes of soap, by flooding the market with poisoned stomach powders such that “a few thousand Karims bite the dust and those that are left pull down the Union Jack”. When Fay (Monica Stevenson) protests that children could die, Leeson comments “I shouldn’t worry. In a dump like that, they’re only going to be hungry for the rest of their lives”. What a fiend!

Steed: What a very, very pleasing design. Let’s hope you can keep it a secret.

Everyone here is on top form, with Peter Barkworth (The Ice Warriors) leading the way as over-diligent managing director Geoffrey Willis. Initially, there’s a hint of suspicion going his way when he brushes off Steed’s request for a specimen of the duplicated cardboard also used in the fakes. But we’re continually lobbed not-quite red herrings after this, including Miss Dowell (Joy Wood) listening in on conversations and then requesting her first sick days since joining the firm in order to go and give instructions to Leeson. Also appearing are Newton Blick as old duffer Willis senior, having an affair with Fay and generally showing eyes for all the ladies, and John Crocker (Propellant 23) be-tached as Taylor, looking a touch like David Thewlis.

Steed: Have you come to roll in the oils too, Mrs Dowell?

Of the regulars, this is most noticeable for a horrifically unconvincing attempt by Steed to pass himself as Icelandic (still called Steed) courtesy of a big fur coat, hat and cigar, and an interest in buying art from Leeson, promising “to make you the toast of Reykjavik”. Steed also gets Cathy to pose as a model, pretty risky since Miss Dowell doesn’t take long to show up and reveal all (Cathy has already masqueraded as an efficiency expert at the firm).

Regarding all things bodily, Steed cops a rather inelegant eyeful of the Mrs Gale behind early on, and she subsequently has a shower scene (there’s also a suggestive shot of a model fastening her bra at the start of the first Leeson scene).

Geoffrey Willis: I couldn’t find one with a silencer.

Steed: What a pity. I could (he shoots Willis).

The impersonation of a model is a fairly desperate ploy at that point anyway, since Mrs Gale is sporting an eyepatch, although perhaps he’s counting on Leeson’s leering peccadillos. A nice twist after the villain twist, with Steed having changed the Arabic on Lilt (pre-Lilt the drink) to read “This is an imitation. Danger of instant death”, and some amusing interplay regarding Steed’s golfing deficiencies; Cathy’s handicap is 12 to Steed’s 24, so he thinks he might be in with a chance with her being temporarily monocular. A fine cast, but The Medicine Men lacks that spoonful of sugar.

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

You were this amazing occidental samurai.

Ricochet (1991) (SPOILERS) You have to wonder at Denzel Washington’s agent at this point in the actor’s career. He’d recently won his first Oscar for Glory , yet followed it with less-than-glorious heart-transplant ghost comedy Heart Condition (Bob Hoskins’ racist cop receives Washington’s dead lawyer’s ticker; a recipe for hijinks!) Not long after, he dipped his tentative toe in the action arena with this Joel Silver production; Denzel has made his share of action fare since, of course, most of it serviceable if unremarkable, but none of it comes near to delivering the schlocky excesses of Ricochet , a movie at once ingenious and risible in its plot permutations, performances and production profligacy.

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.

Well, something’s broke on your daddy’s spaceship.

Apollo 13 (1995) (SPOILERS) The NASA propaganda movie to end all NASA propaganda movies. Their original conception of the perilous Apollo 13 mission deserves due credit in itself; what better way to bolster waning interest in slightly naff perambulations around a TV studio than to manufacture a crisis event, one emphasising the absurd fragility of the alleged non-terrestrial excursions and the indomitable force that is “science” in achieving them? Apollo 13 the lunar mission was tailor made for Apollo 13 the movie version – make believe the make-believe – and who could have been better to lead this fantasy ride than Guantanamo Hanks at his all-American popularity peak?

I can’t be the worst. What about that hotdog one?

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) (SPOILERS) It would have been a merciful release, had the title card “ The End ”, flashing on screen a little before the ninety-minute mark, not been a false dawn. True, I would still have been unable to swab the bloody dildoes fight from my mind, but at least Everything Everywhere All at Once would have been short. Indeed, by the actual end I was put in mind of a line spoken by co-star James Wong in one of his most indelible roles: “ Now this really pisses me off to no end ”. Or to put it another way, Everything Everywhere All at Once rubbed me up the wrong which way quite a lot of most of the time.

We’ve got the best ball and chain in the world. Your ass.

Wedlock (1991) (SPOILERS) The futuristic prison movie seemed possessed of a particular cachet around this time, quite possibly sparked by the grisly possibilities of hi-tech disincentives to escape. On that front, HBO TV movie Wedlock more than delivers its FX money shot. Elsewhere, it’s less sure of itself, rather fumbling when it exchanges prison tropes for fugitives-on-the-run ones.

Drank the red. Good for you.

Morbius (2022) (SPOILERS) Generic isn’t necessarily a slur. Not if, by implication, it’s suggestive of the kind of movie made twenty years ago, when the alternative is the kind of super-woke content Disney currently prioritises. Unfortunately, after a reasonable first hour, Morbius descends so resignedly into such unmoderated formula that you’re left with a too-clear image of Sony’s Spider-Verse when it lacks a larger-than-life performer (Tom Hardy, for example) at the centre of any given vehicle.

So, you’re telling me that NASA is going to kill the President of the United States with an earthquake?

Conspiracy Theory (1997) (SPOILERS) Mel Gibson’s official rehabilitation occurred with the announcement of 2016’s Oscar nominations, when Hacksaw Ridge garnered six nods, including Mel as director. Obviously, many refuse to be persuaded that there’s any legitimate atonement for the things someone says. They probably weren’t even convinced by Mel’s appearance in Daddy’s Home 2 , an act of abject obeisance if ever there was one. In other circles, though, Gibbo, or Mad Mel, is venerated as a saviour unsullied by the depraved Hollywood machine, one of the brave few who would not allow them to take his freedom. Or at least, his values. Of course, that’s frequently based on alleged comments he made, ones it’s highly likely he didn’t. But doesn’t that rather appeal to the premise of his 23-year-old star vehicle Conspiracy Theory , in which “ A good conspiracy theory is an unproveable one ”?

He’ll regret it to his dying day, if ever he lives that long.

The Quiet Man (1952) (SPOILERS) The John Wayne & John Ford film for those who don’t like John Wayne & John Ford films? The Quiet Man takes its cues from Ford’s earlier How Green Was My Valley in terms of, well less Anglophile and Hibernophile and Cambrophile nostalgia respectively for past times, climes and heritage, as Wayne’s pugilist returns to his family seat and stirs up a hot bed of emotions, not least with Maureen O’Hara’s red-headed hothead. The result is a very likeable movie, for all its inculcated Oirishness and studied eccentricity.

He doesn’t want to lead you. He just wants you to follow.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) (SPOILERS) The general failing of the prequel concept is a fairly self-evident one; it’s spurred by the desire to cash in, rather than to tell a story. This is why so few prequels, in any form, are worth the viewer/reader/listener’s time, in and of themselves. At best, they tend to be something of a well-rehearsed fait accompli. In the movie medium, even when there is material that withstands closer inspection (the Star Wars prequels; The Hobbit , if you like), the execution ends up botched. With Fantastic Beasts , there was never a whiff of such lofty purpose, and each subsequent sequel to the first prequel has succeeded only in drawing attention to its prosaic function: keeping franchise flag flying, even at half-mast. Hence Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore , belatedly arriving after twice the envisaged gap between instalments and course-correcting none of the problems present in The Crimes of Grindelwald .

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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