I think there’s more behind these walls than just a ghost.

The Avengers

4.14: Castle De’ath

A splendidly atmospheric episode from the pen of John Lucarrotti, his last for the show, brought to vivid life by James Hill, his first, Castle De’ath is one of the highlights of the fourth season, incorporating as it does some surefooted misdirection as Jock McSteed and Mrs Peel investigate a death in the loch.

Steed: I think there’s more behind these walls than just a ghost.

Mrs Peel: What are you going to do?

Steed: I’m going fishing.

Mrs Peel: What, in the loch?

Steed: No. In the moat.

The title might suggest Castle De’ath is broader than it is, for while there are liberal does of humour and the scheme itself (“It’s all to do with the price of fish”) doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny (the fish are scant as they’ve been driven to deeper waters by the ultrasonic waves of submarines using the loch for dodgy things), the actual dramatics are played fairly straight, and the characters, while colourful, are neither wacky nor eccentric. The deft balance of elements is emphasised by the teaser scene in which a man is being tortured – on the rack, no less – and the sound of bagpipes drowns out his cries.

Mrs Peel: How do you do, Mr McSteed?

Steed: Everyone calls me “Jock”. How do you do?

Mrs Peel: You don’t have a Scots accent.

Steed: I was carried south by marauding Sassenachs when I was a bairn. But this is my spiritual home.

The duo’s assumption of identities is always good value, on this occasion particularly so. Steed is already installed at the castle upon Emma’s arrival, posing as the aforementioned Jock McSteed, rocking a natty kilt and researching a book on the disgraced thirteenth laird, Black Jamie, who was walled up in the east tower for his treachery and whose ghost still walks the castle, “playing the lament of Glen De’ath on the bagpipes”.

Steed: Isn’t it time we dropped in on the old fella?

Ian De’ath: No.

Steed: He must be lonely.

Ian De’ath: Walled up until doomsday was his sentence and until doomsday he’ll stay there.

Steed seeks the permission of the current laird, Ian De’ath (Gordon Jackson, very much in demand at this juncture, appearing in both The Ipcress File and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines in the same year), to go fishing in the loch (“Just as long as you’re not one of those aqualung people” Ian tells him; “Water is the fish’s habitat, not mine” Steed replies).

Except that Steed does, of course, end up getting wet. Spied upon by right-hand caber tosser McNab (Jack Lambert), he gets the better of them for a while, pretending to fish behind some foliage while he dives in the moat, but is summarily descended on upon surfacing (or, at least, his stunt double is; he also earns his fee very evidently during the climactic swordplay with Robert Urquhart’s Angus De’ath).

Yes, this is one where all eyes are on the severe and traditional Ian as the instigator of the diabolical plot, but it’s actually his free-spirited brother who’s responsible (although, why Angus is inviting all and sundry to stay if he's trying to keep his scheme a secret is anyone's guess). You might suspect this in a standard story, but we’re so used to The Avengers laying it all out on a plate that the deception works quite successfully.

Steed: (appreciating the portrait of Black Jamie) Fierce looking fellow, isn’t he?

Ian De’ath: You didn’t hear him last night?

Steed: Does he give regular concerts?

One wonders what Lucarotti’s source for spook material was, given that he ascribes as suspicious its erratic activity (“Unusual for a ghost. They usually operate a regular schedule”). Perhaps Steed is an amateur parapsychologist? While the episode doesn’t enter into full-on Scooby Doo territory, there are more than sufficient funhouse trappings, including an iron maiden in the basement with a secret door (that does for Angus during the final chase when it jams) and a four-poster bed with a cement canopy that manages to crush Steed’s bowler but not its intended.

Ian De’ath: You didn’t notice anything? Nothing at all?

Steed: Only the bed. Gave me a touch of claustrophobia. I spent the night in a chair.

Steed is, of course, unstintingly cheerful about the close shave (“They’ve got a spot-on service here. Tried to press my best shirt last night – while I was still wearing it”). Once he is captured and the mechanics of the scheme are revealed, the detail is a little on the superfluous/impenetrable side; as far as I can tell, we’re left to fill in the blanks of what exactly they’re up to with these two-man submarines (as McNab says to Steed “Your guess is as good as mine”; “I should think, slightly better” comes the reply). Steed correctly surmises they can’t’ just shoot him (“But the wee hole would show when they found my corpse in the loch”) and manages to escape his shackles with a lucky ricochet causing the sub pen to flood (“Going rather well”).

Roberton: The duty engineer’s been attacked.

McNab: Attacked?

Roberton: No, not him a woman.

McNab: A woman?

Steed: Bless her.

Mrs Peel is representing ABORCASHAATA, the Advisory Bureau on Refurbishing Castles and Stately Homes as a Tourist Attraction, hired by Angus much to Ian’s disdain. She’s particularly keen on checking out the dungeon, on account of Steed’s titbit (“Did you know that frogman was four inches taller when he was dead than when he was alive? He’d been on the rack”). Which means she gets jumped by heavies the first time (“Lean on me, Mistress Peel, as much as you like” invites Steed, before asking “Was there a rack down there? In good racking order?”)

On the second occasion, she is locked in all night in her nightie, causing Steed to astutely observe “I think we’ve been rumbled”. She also, during the final fight, kills a bad guy with a crossbow bolt. I don’t know: shotguns, crossbows. Mrs Peel’s really rather violent. Talking of which, I don’t think we’re fully clear if Ian dies from taking Angus’ knife to his chest. If so, it seems a little excessive.

Angus: Ay, Ian. You certainly work hard at this canny Scots bit, don’t you?

The episode’s full of lovely little moments, be they atmospheric (Steed noticing the vibrating wine glass during dinner) or amusing. At one point, he’s doing the Highland Fling in his bedroom while Mrs Peel plays miniature bagpipes. Later, or earlier, at breakfast, he’s dubiously contemplating his porridge when Ian advises “You’re right, man. There’s not enough salt on it” before liberally applying the same and offering Steed the cellar. He quickly passes it on to Angus.

It doesn’t look as if Macnee or Rigg got within a hundred miles of Allington Castle, if their conspicuous doubles are any indication, but it makes for a very nice slice of scenery and the seams showing fails to dampen the verve of the proceedings. The “walk-off” is good fun too, in which fishing comes up again. “What, in those clothes?” asks Emma of Steed’s immaculate suit. He promptly drives his – amphibious – car into a nearby loch.

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.

The Krishna died of a broken finger? I mean, is that a homicide?

Miami Blues (1990) (SPOILERS) If the ‘90s crime movie formally set out its stall in 1992 with Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs , another movie very quietly got in there first at the beginning of the decade. Miami Blues picked up admiring reviews but went otherwise unnoticed on release, and even now remains under-recognised. The tale of “blithe psychopath” Federick J. Frenger, Jr., the girl whose heart he breaks and the detetive sergeant on his trail, director George Armitage’s adaptation of Charles Willeford’s novel wears a pitch black sense of humour and manages the difficult juggling act of being genuinely touching with it. It’s a little gem of a movie, perfectly formed and concisely told, one that more than deserves to rub shoulders with the better-known entries in its genre. One of the defining characteristics of Willeford’s work, it has been suggested , is that it doesn’t really fit into the crime genre; he comes from an angle of character rather than plot or h

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?

The Illumi-what-i?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (SPOILERS) In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he’s sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything more than a few scraps of stylistic flourish intact.

People still talk about Pandapocalypse 2002.

Turning Red (2022) (SPOILERS) Those wags at Pixar, eh? Yes, the most – actually, the only – impressive thing about Turning Red is the four-tiered wordplay of its title. Thirteen-year-old Mei (Rosalie Chiang) finds herself turning into a large red panda at emotive moments. She is also, simultaneously, riding the crimson wave for the first time. Further, as a teenager, she characteristically suffers from acute embarrassment (mostly due to the actions of her domineering mother Ming Lee, voiced by Sandra Oh). And finally, of course, Turning Red can be seen diligently spreading communist doctrine left, right and centre. To any political sensibility tuning in to Disney+, basically (so ones with either considerable or zero resistance to woke). Take a guess which of these isn’t getting press in reference to the movie? And by a process of elimination is probably what it it’s really about (you know in the same way most Pixars, as far back as Toy Story and Monsters, Inc . can be given an insi

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.

You tampered with the universe, my friend.

The Music of Chance (1993) (SPOILERS) You won’t find many adaptations of Paul Auster’s novels. Original screenplays, yes, a couple of which he has directed himself. Terry Gilliam has occasionally mentioned Mr. Vertigo as in development. It was in development in 1995 too, when Philip Haas and Auster intended to bring it to the screen. Which means Auster presumably approved of Haas’ work on The Music of Chance (he also cameos). That would be understandable, as it makes for a fine, ambiguous movie, pregnant with meaning yet offering no unequivocal answers, and one that makes several key departures from the book yet crucially maintains a mesmerising, slow-burn lure.

I only know what I’ve been programmed to believe. But, of course, the same goes for you.

Raised by Wolves Season One (SPOILERS) Ridley Scott’s latest transhumanist tract is so stuffed with required lore, markers and programming, it’s a miracle it manages to tell a half-engaging story along the way. Aaron Guzikowski ( Prisoners ) is the credited creator, but it has the Ridders stamp of dour dystopia all over it, complete with Darius Wolski ( Prometheus ) cinematography setting the tone. Which means bleak grey skies, augmented by South Africa this time, rather than Iceland. Raised by Wolves is a reliable mix of wacko twist plotting and clumsy, slack-jawed messaging; like the Alien prequels, it will surely never be seen through to a conclusion, but as an agenda platform it’s never less than engaging (and also frequently, for the same reasons, exasperating).

You’re like a human mummy!

The Lost City (2022) (SPOILERS) Perhaps the most distressing part of The Lost City , a Romancing the Stone riff that appears to have been packaged by the Hollywood equivalent of a processed cheese plant lacking its primary ingredient (that would be additives), is the possibility that Daniel Radcliffe is the only viable actor left standing in Tinseltown. That’s if the suggestions at least two of the performers here – Sandra Bullock and Brad Pitt – are deep faked in some way, shape or form, and the other name – Channing Tatum – is serving hard atonement time. If the latter’s choices generally weren’t so abysmal and his talent in arears, I’d assume that was the only explanation for him showing up in this dreck.

Okay, just jump right into my nightmare, the water is warm.

Jerry Maguire (1996) (SPOILERS) I didn’t much like Jerry Maguire at the time, which I suspect is intrinsically linked to the fact that I didn’t much like Tom Cruise at the time. I’m still not really a massive fan of either, but the latter at least made an effort to rein in his most irksome traits subsequently. Jerry Maguire , however, finds him drawing on the same “bag of tricks” that mystifyingly transfixed his fan base a decade before in Top Gun . Bonnie Hunt suggested the toughest part of the role was “ playing a character that doesn’t like Tom Cruise ”. I wouldn’t have had that problem. I do not like Tom and Jerry.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog