Don’t get tipsy. We can’t have you hiccoughing in the coffin.

The Avengers

4.2: The Murder Market

Tony Williamson’s first teleplay for the series picks up where Brian Clemens left off and then some, with murderous goings-on around marriage-making outfit Togetherness Inc (“Where there is always a happy ending”). Peter Graham Scott, in his first of four directing credits, sets out a winning stall where cartoonishness and stylisation are the order of the day. As is the essential absurdity of the English gentleman, with Steed’s impeccable credentials called on to illustrious effect not seen since The Charmers.

Mr Lovejoy: Now, do you have a preferred marriage partner?
Steed: Well, broadly speaking, female.

Emma informs Steed that the chances of coincidence in the likely suspects of 11 apparently organised murders being conveniently elsewhere at the time are 27 million to 1, so C3P0’s got nothing on her. Led to Togetherness Inc via a dodgy photographer, who has the jump on Blow-Up by a good two years (“Give it a bit of life, baby. Animate!”), there’s a slight whiff of déjà vu of Harold Innocent’s artist in The Medicine Man; in both cases, they’re in on the scheme, while the premise of providing an alibi to the most likely suspect was previously covered in Mandrake. Although, here, it is very much of a Strangers on a Train type.

Steed: The marriage bureau’s involved in this. It’s involved right up to its bridal bouquet.

The sets and style are even more accentuated than before, with the series suddenly a fully-formed part of the swinging ‘60s; when Steed sets off a model with his bowler and brolly, to the photographer’s delight, it’s pretty much a summation of the modern-retro vibe that was happening all over popular culture. Then there’s the very excessive interior of Togetherness Inc (“What a charming atmosphere!”), an excellent title shot of a shot fish tank, and the elaborate use of coffins and lying in state (always a go-to for the show).

Mrs Peel: Steed, who are you supposed to kill?

Steed: You, my dear.

Williamson does fall victim to a not-uncommon failing of our superspies, though, which is spreading themselves too thinly. The number of times someone they idly meet is linked to the villains, you’d have thought they’d get menials to do some of the basic footwork, since both Steed and Emma are rumbled on this occasion through not being in character with the villains. Emma spies the Canuck (Suzanne Lloyd as Barbara Wakefield) fleeing from JG Henshaw’s (Robert Milner) house, who later identifies her, after Steed has sent her to the bureau (resulting in his getting commissioned to top Emma, another trope the series uses not infrequently), while our photographer friend was one of the first people he interviewed, so its sheer luck that Steed didn’t get rumbled earlier.

The only major surprise is that John Woodvine turns out to not to be a bad guy (he’s in American Werewolf, rather than Armageddon Factor, mode), mainly thanks to his sinister red herring manner on first encounter. But, if the actual managing director is a twist, it isn’t matched by a grand performance.

Mrs Peel: What’s marriage got to do with it?

Steed: A marvellous institution, my dear. I’m seriously contemplating it. I offered myself on the market today. Every bid considered. Of course, I’m very choosy.

Patrick Cargill is marvellously oily as Mr Lovejoy (he’s the Number Two Six gives a nervous breakdown in Hammer Into Anvil), ushering in a wave of unfettered snobbery as he announces that their clients come “from all the best families” and “We do not accept the lower orders, you understand”. Steed is, of course, perfect placed for such prescriptiveness, passing the emotional and physical compatibility test (“We take the uncertainty out of life. Compatibility is the key, Mr Steed”) with flying colours (asked by Lovejoy “Guards? Which guards?” Steed replies “The guards”, while his reaction to the prospect of a taking job is positively Woosterish (“I tried working once. It didn’t work out. Too much like work”) and his objection to murder is purely on the grounds of the hardships of prison (“I’ve always preferred soft collars. Besides, the thought of getting up at 8 o’clock in the morning”).

Steed: So long as she’s got a good seat on a horse, plays a fair game of bridge, mixes a dry martini, can whip up a passable soufflé. You might say a good all-rounder.

There’s quite the ripple of ribaldry running through the proceedings too, with Steed eyeing up the talent, offering his selection of personal photos (“Playing polo. In the nude… Oh no, I was 18 months at the time”) and commenting on his first date during a wedding cake tasting (“I must say, I found her very tasty. I mean, er, compatible”).

Mr Lovejoy: Mature, cultivated, intelligent.

Mrs Peel: With stamina.

Mr Lovejoy: Quite so, yes.

Although, that’s nothing as to Emma’s stated appetites, reducing Lovejoy to unaccustomed embarrassment when she emphasises the importance of endurance in her husband to be. The characterisation of Emma is a bit up and down in this one, truth be told, reflecting its status as Rigg’s first completed episode. We get a mention of her husband (“Time you thought of marrying again”) and an amusing sequence of her lying in state (“You were certainly resting very peacefully”) before succumbing to the champagne Steed has left her (“Anything I can get you? Magazines, newspapers, a harp?”) and dancing around the reception room. Not something you could imagine of Mrs Gale. And yet…

Mrs Peel: She’ll have to be quite a girl. A mixture of Lucretia Borgia and Joan of Arc.

Steed: Sounds like every girl I ever knew.

When Emma comes across the body of Henshaw in a bath, she furiously rounds on Steed (“You knew!”), and we’re suddenly experiencing incensed Cathy Gale flashbacks. All very unfair too, since Steed has indeed done his best to save the man. Likewise, when he suggests that qualities necessary in finding a match for someone like himself (“Educated, charming cultured”) she counters him in a very Mrs Gale manner (“Ruthless, devious, scheming”) showing that, for all Rigg’s very different playing, there was still some way to go in characterisation.

That has to be balanced against comic business we just wouldn’t have seen a season earlier, however, from Emma getting a golf ball lodged in her tuba (it was Macnee’s suggestion she play it, as it was originally earmarked for Steed) to a lovely little piece of interplay between Cargill and Macnee, sitting in the wrong directions in opposite facing chairs, and a climactic fight that sees Steed overpowering an opponent by means of a faceful of cake. Blink and you’ll miss Penelope Keith as a blushing bride (she’d appear in the show twice more).

And, of course, the coda in which Emma is again driving Steed, this time in a hearse (“I agree with every word you’ve said” oblivious to his holding forth behind the glass divider). This still isn’t quite up to the best of Season Four, but it’s definitely heading in the right direction.

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

Comments

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

What do you want to be? Rich or dead?

Blake's 7 1.3: Cygnus Alpha

Well, the quality couldn’t last. Vere Lorrimer does a solid job directing this one, and the night shooting adds atmosphere in spades. Unfortunately the religious cult on a prison planet just isn’t that interesting (notably, big Brian Blessed was about the only well-known British thesp who wasn’t cast in the similarly themed Alien 3).

It’s Who-central from the off with lovely lovely lovely Kara (Pamela Salem – The Robots of Death and Remembrance of the Daleks) and the Caber, I mean Laran (Robert Russell, Terror of the Zygons) noting the incoming London. Which reuses a shot from Space Fall (the spinning object is a planet, clearly one with an unhealthy speed of rotation).
The length of journey issues in this story don’t bear much analysis. It’s now four months since the events of Space Fall, and poor old Leylan has clearly been affected badly by what went down. But he’s only now sending his report? Useful for the wayward viewer, but a bit slack otherwise.

So.…

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

She's killed my piano.

Rocketman (2019)
(SPOILERS) Early on in Rocketman, there’s a scene where publisher Dick James (Stephen Graham) listens to a selection of his prospective talent’s songs and proceeds to label them utter shite (but signs him up anyway). It’s a view I have a degree of sympathy with. I like maybe a handful of Elton John’s tunes, so in theory, I should be something of a lost cause with regard to this musical biopic. But Rocketman isn’t reliant on the audience sitting back and gorging on naturalistic performances of the hits in the way Bohemian Rhapsody is; Dexter Fletcher fully embraces the musical theatre aspect of the form, delivering a so-so familiar story with choreographic gusto and entirely appropriate flamboyance in a manner that largely compensates. Largely.

Whoever comes, I'll kill them. I'll kill them all.

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
(SPOILERS) There’s no guessing he’s back. John Wick’s return is most definite and demonstrable, in a sequel that does what sequels ought in all the right ways, upping the ante while never losing sight of the ingredients that made the original so formidable. John Wick: Chapter 2 finds the minimalist, stripped-back vehicle and character of the first instalment furnished with an elaborate colour palette and even more idiosyncrasies around the fringes, rather like Mad Max in that sense, and director Chad Stahleski (this time without the collaboration of David Leitch, but to no discernible deficit) ensures the action is filled to overflowing, but with an even stronger narrative drive that makes the most of changes of gear, scenery and motivation.

The result is a giddily hilarious, edge-of-the-seat thrill ride (don’t believe The New York Times review: it is not “altogether more solemn” I can only guess Jeannette Catsoulis didn’t revisit the original in the interven…

Move away from the jams.

Aladdin (2019)
(SPOILERS) I was never overly enamoured by the early ‘90s renaissance of Disney animation, so the raves over Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin left me fairly unphased. On the plus side, that means I came to this live action version fairly fresh (prince); not quite a whole new world but sufficiently unversed in the legend to appreciate it as its own thing. And for the most part, Aladdin can be considered a moderate success. There may not be a whole lot of competition for that crown (I’d give the prize to Pete’s Dragon, except that it was always part-live action), but this one sits fairly comfortably in the lead.

Isn’t Johnnie simply too fantastic for words?

Suspicion (1941)
(SPOILERS) Suspicion found Alfred Hitchcock basking in the warm glow of Rebecca’s Best Picture Oscar victory the previous year (for which he received his first of five Best Director nominations, famously winning none of them). Not only that, another of his films, Foreign Correspondent, had jostled with Rebecca for attention. Suspicion was duly nominated itself, something that seems less unlikely now we’ve returned to as many as ten award nominees annually (numbers wouldn’t be reduced to five until 1945). And still more plausible, in and of itself, than his later and final Best Picture nod, Spellbound. Suspicion has a number of claims to eminent status, not least the casting of Cary Grant, if not quite against type, then playing on his charm as a duplicitous quality, but it ultimately falls at the hurdle of studio-mandated compromise.

Looks as though vaudeville may have just decided to fight back.

The Avengers 6.7: Look – (Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One) But There Were These Two Fellers…
Well, it took a while, but The Avengers finally rediscovers the sparkle of the best Rigg era episodes thanks to a Dennis Spooner teleplay (his first credit since the first season), one that spreads itself just about as broadly as it’s possible for the show to go – Look – (Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One) But There Were These Two Fellers… was purportedly rejected for the Rigg run for just that reason – but which is also nigh on perfect in pace, structure and characterisation. And guest spots.

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013)
(SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

No one is very happy. Which means it's a good compromise, I suppose.

Game of Thrones Season 8
(SPOILERS) How many TV series that rely on ongoing plotlines – which is most of them these days – have actually arrived at a wholly satisfying conclusion? As in, one that not only surprises but pays off the investment viewers have made over (maybe) seven or eight years? I can think of a few that shocked or dazzled (Angel, The Leftovers) and some that disappointed profoundly (Lost) but most often, they end on an “okay” (reasonably satisfying, if you like) rather than on a spectacular or, conversely, enormously disappointing note. Game of Thrones may not have paid off for many vocal fans who’d accept nothing less than note-perfect rendering of certain key desired developments, but much of the season unfolded in a manner that seemed just the kind of thing I would have expected; not, on the whole, shocking, blind-siding, or (give-or-take) spectacular, but okay, or reasonably satisfying.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog