Skip to main content

He’d been clawed to death, as though by some bird. Some huge, obscene bird.

The Avengers
5.6: The Winged Avenger

Maybe I’m just easily amused, such that a little Patrick Macnee uttering “Ee-urp!” goes a long way, but I’m a huge fan of The Winged Avenger. It’s both a very silly episode and about as meta as the show gets, and one in which writer Richard Harris (1.3: Square Root of Evil, 1.10: Hunt the Man Down) succeeds in casting a wide net of suspects but effectively keeps the responsible party’s identity a secret until late in the game.


Peter Roberts: He’d been clawed to death, as though by some bird. Some huge, obscene bird.

The first victims are ruthless publishers Simon Roberts and Son ("Hit him, and hit him hard" instructs old man Roberts of a longstanding senior employee about to get the push). Simon (William Fox) is the first victim of a savage clawing, followed by Peter (Donald Pickering, of The Faceless Ones and Time and the Rani), but not before the trail has led to Sir Lexius Cray (Nigel Green, Major "Now listen to me" Dalby in The Ipcress File: also Hercules in Jason and the Argonauts), who has motive (being fiddled out of royalties of his book The Mountaineer). They could have shown a posher exterior for Roberts' luxury penthouse building; it looks like a bog-standard block of flats.

Poole: It’s imperative I see you tonight. Now. At once. Right away.
Mrs Peel: You mean immediately? Alright, I’ll come right now.

There's a co-director credit for Gordon Flemyng (5.1: The Fear Merchants) and Peter Duffell (the Internet frequently, and the Blu-ray box, manages to reverse the writer-director credits fro this one), it seems a result of Flemyng being a poor fit for the series (Michael Richardson's Bowler Hats and Kinky Boots suggests he got the boot quite early on for being too slow). One must assume then, that the lion's share of this very stylish episode is down to Duffell, a relative newcomer who’d go on to such disparate projects as a couple of ITC series, assorted features including The House That Dripped Blood, The Famous Five, The Far Pavilions, Inspector Morse and Space Precinct. 

I'll come to the strip cartoon motif, but before that we have our first reality check. Recalling The Gravediggers, but offering the fake out first, Emma is found crouching on a peak of the Eiger with Cray ("There’s nothing like authenticity"); it's actually the corner of a room in his mansion, complete with blizzard effect. It isn't perhaps the most layered part, but the positioning of Green suggests a likely candidate for the villain of the piece, which he isn't. ]

Cray also has a rather unfortunate "Sherpa" manservant, Tay-Ling ("I wouldn't feel right tucking into old Tay-Ling" he admits, of what he'd do if starvation beckoned and he didn't have a dog). To portray the character's ethnicity, John Garrie dons very evident false teeth and acts humble; fulfilling his appointed task of introducing the next suspect, he is then unceremoniously offed. Ee-urp! 

Oddly, his master doesn't suffer this fate, although he's the instigator. There's also the superfluous death of industrialist Edward J Dumayn (Hilary Wontner, Silent Dust). Well, he is there to underline that Steed and Emma are on the right track, right down to identifying him (amazing that, of all the ruthless businessman in Britain the Winged Avenger could have chosen, he picks their pick), and also to announce the comic strip plot/conceit (the photo of his body is taken at exactly the same angle as the illustration found at Winged Avenger Enterprises, a scarcely credible occurrence, if you're following any internal logic, which this isn't).

Mrs Peel: According to the professor, when you put them on, you could walk up the side of a house.

Poole (Jack MacGowran, The Fearless Vampire Killers, Wonderwall, Age of Consent, The Exorcist) turns out to be an unassuming and very eccentric professor. Unlike previous episodes flirting with the fantastic, there's never any doubt the Winged Avenger is a man in a suit, and this time, the professor comes armed with unlikely inventions that actually work (see The See-Through Man). Poole is batty for flight, hence flapping his cape-like wings as he runs through the grounds and hanging from the ceiling in gravity-defying boots ("Magnetic fields, you know"). His book shelves are also upside down. Steed doesn't approve of the idea ("Ah, takes all the romance out of it"), while Emma merely falls back on quips when she confirms his invention is real ("Do I assume that before long, everyone will be hanging on the ceiling? It'll ruin the carpet trade"). Ee-urp!


Steed: Poole was lying.
Mrs Peel: To be strictly accurate, he was hanging. Upside down.

But the professor too ends up dead. Hanging from the ceiling. These early sections of the episode are all agreeable and diverting, but it's with the events at Winged Avenger Enterprises that the material really comes into its own. Steed arrives there unobtrusively, observing an entire drama unfolding before he’s noticed:

Packer: Julian, your swooping in on this beautiful girl, carrying her off to your nest, and what do you say?
Julian: Oh, I say "Ah!"
Packer: You say "Ah!"? Well, for heaven's sake, feel it.
Julian: Ahhh! Oh, I can' somehow.
Packer: Stanton, he can't say your lines.
Stanton: Try that.
Julian: Ee-urp? Eee-urpp! Oh, that's much better, Mr Stanton. Much better.


Arnie Packer (Neil Hallett, previously in Dead of Winter, later in UFO, two New Avengers – poor guy, Time Lash – poor guy – his last screen role was Seppings in the first season of Jeeves and Wooster) is the illustrator of the Winged Avenger (actually, it's Frank Bellamy, best known for his evocative Dan Dare and Doctor Who work – he also designed the costume). Stanton (Colin Jeavons, 4.21: A Touch of Brimstone) writes the stories. Julian (Roy Patrick) models the feathered freak. 

More misdirection from Harris here: Stanton comes across as unstable, losing his grip ("I'm sick of your insinuations!"), rambling about how the Avenger should be envisaged like a man possessed, or obsessed ("… should be omnipotent, a law unto himself – seeks out wicked men, men without pity. He seeks them out and he swoops down and he, and he…") They are also arguing over who is the key to the cartoon strip, the writer or the illustrator. Packer just laughs when the idea of the gravity boots is presented, while Stanton looks disturbed. And then there's Julian, who certainly has the bulk to carry out winged avenging. 


Mrs Peel: One, or both together.
Steed: I don't think so. The Winged Avenger definitely works alone.

It's the least likely, of course, that being Packer ("He's mad. Power mad!" exclaims Stanton). And while, at a stretch, one might explain away the crime scene photograph of Dumayn, the tale diverts into delightfully self-reflexive territory when Steed and Stanton head off to head off Packer pecking Mrs Peel to pieces. Ee-urp!


Packer: It won’t do you any good, Mrs Peel. I am the eradicator of all evils, I deal out justice and vengeance to those whom the law cannot touch. And to those who stand between me and my purpose… I am the Winged Avenger, Mrs Peel.
Mrs Peel: Just a myth. A cardboard character.
Packer: Cardboard, Mrs Peel? Cardboard? (shreds some climbing rails) Creator and creation fused into one being. Indivisible. Omnipotent, unstoppable. Nothing, nothing stands in my way. Least of all you, Mrs Peel. Least of all you.


Stanton flips over art board after art board (it quickly becomes evident he's looking through more than he brought with him), each one showing a new simultaneous development at Plum's house – a storyboard of a claw in frame and the professor's startled reaction signals his demise – as Emma realises the Winged Avenger has arrived.  One wonders if some inspiration wasn't drawn from Jack Lemmon's cartoonist turning his life into a strip cartoon in How to Murder Your Wife only a year or so earlier.




Mrs Peel: Hey, I’m coming down.
Steed: Ee-urp (Emma laughs).

 The upside-down fight between Emma and Packer is a nice idea that would have worked a whole lot better if the Winged Avenger wasn't wearing a remarkably gravity-defying cape to complement his gravity-defying boots. Once Steed arrives, we're in full-on Batman territory, complete with very reminiscent theme tune and comic strip sound effects accompanying Steed hitting the Winged Avenger with a storyboard ("POW!") followed by a "SPLAT!" And a decisive "BAM!" as the Winged Avenger is sent flying through the window ("Packer's really got his wings clipped"”).

Steed: I have two possible alternatives. The murderer inflates a small balloon. He rises up the nearest building. He fires a rocket line across to the penthouse. He drops a trampoline. He bounces on it, in through the window. Possibility Number One.
Mrs Peel: And Possibility Number Two?
Steed: He bribes the doorman.

It scarcely needs stating that Macnee and Rigg are on sterling form, fully supported by the material, from Steed obsessing over his model tower block made from a shoebox, to his informing Emma of the creature’s cry: "Ee-urp! Ee-urp! Probably the bird equivalent of goodbye, nice to have met you" In response Emma announces "Well, I’m off to make a return visit to Professor Poole's" to which both "Ee-urp" goodbye to each other. Then there's the typical Steed response to Emma informing him that at the studio, there were "Well, a number of girls in various stages of exposure". "Ah, yes" he sighs wistfully. She snaps her fingers, and then goes on to note of Julian "I must say, the Winged Avenger outfit fits him very well" to which Steed snaps his at her. Equal-opportunities lustiness there.

Mrs Peel: Well, it’s nice to be right way up for a change.
Steed: At least you know where you stand.

The ending is probably the best of season so far too, running with the art theme (in the opening, Steed had written "Mrs Peel" on her oil painting, before announcing "We're needed"), with Steed's sketch of the three-course meal he's preparing, including champagne (Rigg adlibs "It just went with a wallop" as she opens a 1959 Chablis) and Whitstable oysters. As Steed unveils the feast itself, a "PING!" appears. The Winged Avenger is surely as irreverent as the show has been up to this point, an approach that can draw a mixed response from fans, but it's one of my favourite episodes of the entire run. Ee-urp!






















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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.
Post a Comment
Read more

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…
1 comment
Read more

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…
1 comment
Read more

You're waterboarding me.

The Upside (2017)
(SPOILERS) The list of US remakes of foreign-language films really ought to be considered a hiding to nothing, given the ratio of flops to unqualified successes. There’s always that chance, though, of a proven property (elsewhere) hitting the jackpot, and every exec hopes, in the case of French originals, for another The Birdcage, Three Men and a Baby, True Lies or Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Even a Nine Months, Sommersby or Unfaithful will do. Rather than EdTV. Or Sorcerer. Or Eye of the Beholder. Or Brick Mansions. Or Chloe. Or Intersection (Richard Gere is clearly a Francophile). Or Just Visiting. Or The Man with One Red Shoe. Or Mixed Nuts. Or Original Sin. Or Oscar. Or Point of No Return. Or Quick Change. Or Return to Paradise. Or Under Suspicion. Or Wicker Park. Or Father’s Day.
Post a Comment
Read more

What about the meaningless line of indifference?

The Lion King (2019)
(SPOILERS) And so the Disney “live-action” remake train thunders on regardless (I wonder how long the live-action claim would last if there was a slim hope of a Best Animated Feature Oscar nod?) I know I keep repeating myself, but the early ‘90s Disney animation renaissance didn’t mean very much to me; I found their pictures during that period fine, but none of them blew me away as they did critics and audiences generally. As such, I have scant nostalgia to bring to bear on the prospect of a remake, which I’m sure can work both ways. Aladdin proved to be a lot of fun. Beauty and the Beast entirely tepid. The Lion King, well, it isn’t a badfilm, but it’s wearying its slavish respectfulness towards the original and so diligent in doing it justice, you’d think it was some kind of religious artefact. As a result, it is, ironically, for the most part, dramatically dead in the water.
Post a Comment
Read more

Would you like Smiley Sauce with that?

American Beauty (1999)
(SPOILERS) As is often the case with the Best Picture Oscar, a backlash against a deemed undeserved reward has grown steadily in the years since American Beauty’s win. The film is now often identified as symptomatic of a strain of cinematic indulgence focussing on the affluent middle classes’ first world problems. Worse, it showcases a problematic protagonist with a Lolita-fixation towards his daughter’s best friend (imagine its chances of getting made, let alone getting near the podium in the #MeToo era). Some have even suggested it “mercifully” represents a world that no longer exists (as a pre-9/11 movie), as if such hyperbole has any bearing other than as gormless clickbait; you’d have to believe its world of carefully manicured caricatures existed in the first place to swallow such a notion. American Beauty must own up to some of these charges, but they don’t prevent it from retaining a flawed allure. It’s a satirical take on Americana that, if it pulls its p…
Post a Comment
Read more

You know what I think? I think he just wants to see one cook up close.

The Green Mile (1999)
(SPOILERS) There’s something very satisfying about the unhurried confidence of the storytelling in Frank Darabont’s two prison-set Stephen King adaptations (I’m less beholden to supermarket sweep The Mist); it’s sure, measured and precise, certain that the journey you’re being take on justifies the (indulgent) time spent, without the need for flashy visuals or ornate twists (the twists there are feel entirely germane – with a notable exception – as if they could only be that way). But. The Green Mile has rightly come under scrutiny for its reliance on – or to be more precise, building its foundation on – the “Magical Negro” trope, served with a mild sprinkling of idiot savant (so in respect of the latter, a Best Supporting Actor nomination was virtually guaranteed). One might argue that Stephen King’s magical realist narrative flourishes well-worn narrative ploys and characterisations at every stage – such that John Coffey’s initials are announcement enough of his …
Post a Comment
Read more

I don’t think you will see President Pierce again.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
(SPOILERS) The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and other tall tales of the American frontier is the title of "the book" from which the Coen brothers' latest derives, and so announces itself as fiction up front as heavily as Fargo purported to be based on a true story. In the world of the portmanteau western – has there even been one before? – theme and content aren't really all that distinct from the more familiar horror collection, and as such, these six tales rely on sudden twists or reveals, most of them revolving around death. And inevitably with the anthology, some tall tales are stronger than other tall tales, the former dutifully taking up the slack.
5 comments
Read more

Kindly behove me no ill behoves!

The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
(SPOILERS) It’s often the case that industry-shaking flops aren’t nearly the travesties they appeared to be before the dust had settled, and so it is with The Bonfire of the Vanities. The adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s ultra-cynical bestseller is still the largely toothless, apologetically broad-brush comedy – I’d hesitate to call it a satire in its reconfigured form – it was when first savaged by critics nearly thirty years ago, but taken for what it is, that is, removed from the long shadow of Wolfe’s novel, it’s actually fairly serviceable star-stuffed affair that doesn’t seem so woefully different to any number of rather blunt-edged comedies of the era.
Post a Comment
Read more

Is CBS Corporate telling CBS News "Do not air this story"?

The Insider (1999)
(SPOILERS) The Insider was the 1999 Best Picture Oscar nominee that didn’t. Do any business, that is. Which is, more often than not, a major mark against it getting the big prize. It can happen (2009, and there was a string of them from 2014-2016), but aside from brief, self-congratulatory “we care about art first” vibes, it generally does nothing for the ceremony’s profile, or the confidence of the industry that is its bread and butter. The Insider lacked the easy accessibility of the other nominees – supernatural affairs, wafer-thin melodramas or middle-class suburbanite satires. It didn’t even brandish a truly headlines-shattering nail-biter in its conspiracy-related true story, as earlier contenders All the President’s Men and JFK could boast. But none of those black marks prevented The Insider from being the cream of the year’s crop.
Post a Comment
Read more