The Avengers
3.7: Don’t
Look Behind You
Better
known for what it isn’t, the Emma Peel remake episode The Joker, than in its own right, Don’t Look Behind You is an intermittently effective old dark house
riff in which Cathy receives an invite from medieval costume expert (tenuous!) Sir
Cavalier Rasagne (Steed comments that he sounds like an opera) and is soon
subjected to spooky goings-on. The problem is, atmospherics can become
exasperating if they’re allowed to go on and on and on. And they do, an
interlude with Kenneth Colley aside.
When
explanations and unveilings are eventually forthcoming, Cathy’s phantom menace
is revealed not to be really all that; he’s just a guy, Martin Goodman, whom
she and Steed brought to book a decade earlier for human trafficking (so
they’ve been working together for quite a while), plotting unhinged revenge.
Maurice
Good (his second of three Avengers
roles; he also played a Clanton brother in The
Gunfighters) is okay, solid even, as Goodman, delivering his extended
exposition with something approaching antic conviction, but more interesting is
Cathy’s continued mistrust of Steed, since he shows up just after the nick of time and appears to
know all about the threat she faced. He dissuades her that this is another
example of his habitual chicanery, but it’s an interesting dynamic; the
cheerfully manipulating, privileged gentleman exerting smooth-talking trickery
to obtain the results he wants.
Don’t Look Behind You is most notable for its supporting
weirdos, though. First Cathy and Steed are greeted by fruit loop Ola
Monsey-Chamberlain (Janine Gray), sexually precocious and given to rubbing
things, fondling things and being generally provocative and cryptic.
Then
there’s Colley, whose Young Man could almost be a precursor to the misspent
youth played by Alexis Kanner in The
Prisoner. Loud, irritating and obtuse, he instantly draws attention to
himself as suspicious, and the only real consequence of his death is that
you’re left wondering exactly what sort of fellow he’s supposed to be (“I might be Daryl F Zanuck, I’m Alfred
Hitchcock in disguise”). The scenes with his loudmouth braggart really show
off the cool confidence of Cathy, though, as she is resolutely unimpressed and
forcefully strong-arms him when he attempts to get fresh. She’s also on target
with her generally rather laboured social conscience, since there’s some
substance to it this time (“You bought
and sold people. You made money out of suffering”).
Peter
Hammond directs Brian Clemens’ script with accomplishment, making the most of
the dusty sets and small cast, utilising effective dissolves and incorporating an
appropriately unnerving montage of cut-up photos of Cathy and Martin. Don’t Look Behind You is certainly well
made, but ultimately it rests on a pay-off that fizzles.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.