It is sad that Patrick Macnee has passed on but it seems his demise has spurred a renewed SDMB interest in “the Avengers”.
In one episode, wealthy “victims” are being frightened into thinking how easily they can be murdered. One victim quaffs a stein of ale until he sees at the bottom, a “skull and crossbones” and a message “you have just been murdered”. Later the victim discovers someone hiding in his house and the “assassin” pulls a trick gun with a “B A N G” banner. The “assassin” hands the victim a card with the message “you have just been murdered … again”. The card also instructs the victim that there is a limit to how many times he will be “murdered”, until it will actually become real.
Eventually, Steed and Mrs. Peel help one of the victims who is going to pay the extortion. Unbeknownst to the victim, Mrs Peel will deliver the ransom.
Victim: I’m definitely going to pay those scoundrels. I put a bomb in the briefcase!
Steed: But Mrs Peel is delivering it!!
Victim: Steed, I didn’t know! I was desperate!!! I was already murdered four times!!
Steed: If anything happens to Mrs Peel, I’m going to make it five!
Patrick Macnee’s distinguished manner and his suave, serious voice make that a line only he could deliver properly.
But while he made his name internationally playing a smart, debonair British secret agent, Macnee was never a fan of the James Bond movies.
“I think their stories aren’t that realistic,” he told Salt Lake City’s Deseret News in 1999.
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He HAD to have been pulling their leg. An international spy that fought cybermen and probably countless supernatural enemies, plus giant mutated rats in the sewer, whose boss worked out of a balloon(!) telling people that Bond is unrealistic. ha! I say. Ha!
All a matter of context. These sorts of things I would expect from The Avengers; that’s simply the kind of show it was, very free-wheeling.
Bond, on the other hand, was best when the scripts were straightforward and bore some resemblance to reality. My favorite Bond film will always be From Russia, With Love. Light on gadgetry, heavy on drama, believable plot.
I like the opening scene with the armored knight-who turns out to be just flowers inside. What was the name of the episode featuring a stolen nuclear bomb secrets?
