French Champions Parody Video

The Medium is Not Enough points the way to a pretty hilarious French parody of the classic Sixties ITC spy show The Champions. It doesn't matter if you don't speak French; this short sketch (which does a great job of mimicking the Sixties ITC look) will still resonate with anyone who's familiar with the show. The best gags are visual anyway. I love their send-up of William Gaunt's odd, mouth agape pose in the opening credits, the map in Tremayne's office and the way the trio moves into rooms as a posed unit. It's not all fair to a very entertaining series, but it is pretty hilarious and clearly crafted with love by people who know the show well. (Not sure about the fly-eating bit though; that doesn't work for me.)

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Spyder's Web

Yay! Network will release Spyder's Web on May 2. That's one of the ITC spy series I've been hoping they'd put out. (Virgin of the Secret Service is another I'd love to see.) I've never seen it, but I'm intrigued by what I've read about it.  The exact premise, however, is a little tough to pinpoint—even from Network's official description:

There are over 40,000 different species of spider. All are cannibals, and almost all kill through cunning.

There’s only one Spyder, though. Using a documentary unit as an ingenious cover, the specialist organisation is directly responsible to the government – taking on jobs that are too hot or too delicate for the police, or that someone in authority is putting the block on. Operating within the ideal anonymity of the film world, with its headquarters an office in a crumbling shared building in Soho, the ‘Arachnid Film Unit’ has representatives in many places; it spins a web to trap the guilty, with a network of highly skilled agents all licensed to kill.

An offbeat, stylish and humorous ITC thriller originally screened in 1972, Spyder’s Web stars Patricia Cutts as the dynamic Lottie Dean, Anthony Ainley as her trigger-happy fellow agent, Clive Hawskworth, and Hammer horror star Veronica Carlson as Tolstoy-reading secretary Wallis Ackroyd. The series was based on an idea by Man in a Suitcase co-creator Richard Harris, and writers include Robert Holmes (Public Eye), Alfred Shaughnessy (Upstairs, Downstairs) and sitcom veteran Roy Clarke (Last of the Summer Wine).

In his essential ITV Encyclopedia of Adventure , Dave Rogers asserts that the lack of clarity in the show's premise is intentional and part of its charm. His intriguing description of the series makes it sound downright Avengers-y in its weirdness. Some of the strangeness that the mysterious government organization Web encounters includes a nursing home that can arrange almost anything, a romance tour company whose clients fall in love and then disappear, a mynah bird who relays orders to field agents (in an episode that also involves life-size puppets), a mad vicar waging a war in the middle of Britain and a gadget that instantly ages humans to the point of skeletonizing them.

Network's 4-disc Region: 2 PAL set includes all 13 episodes. Retail is £40.84 but it will be available from Network's website for £35.74. I'm really looking forward to this one!

Trailer For Network's ITC Blu-Ray Collections

Network posted a trailer on YouTube last week for their previously announced upcoming Region B Retro-Action Blu-ray collections, which will contain sample episodes from a whole bunch of Sixties and Seventies ITC spy/adventure series including The Saint, Return of the Saint, Danger Man, The Persuaders!, The Champions, The Prisoner and more.

I love it!  I love it, I love it, I love it!  This montage not only shows off what you'll get on these releases, but captures everything that I love about Sixties ITC adventure series.I could watch it all day.

New Spy DVDs Out This Week

Wow, there is a deluge of new spy titles available this week!  An embarrassment of riches sure to make spy fans poor... but satisfied.  And a lot of it is really essential stuff, too.

MI-5: Volume 8
It feels like it's been forever since we had the last volume of MI-5 (known as Spooks in its native Britain), but I guess it's really only been a year. It always seems so long between these releases, but the next volume always arrives just in time to quench my thirst for this compelling, addictive and consistently solid UK spy series.  (We actually won't have to wait so long for Volume 9, however; BBC has already announced that they'll release it this summer putting America somewhat more on track with the UK release schedule.) MI-5: Volume 8 sees the usual threats to British security and (I hear) the usual high fatality rate amongst the regulars. But it also sees the rare return of someone who left the show: Ruth Evershed. The 3-disc set is happily somewhat cheaper than previous volumes, with an SRP of $39.98, though it can currently be found on Amazon for just $27.99.

Man in a Suitcase: Set 1
Man, any single one of these titles would make this a good week for spy releases! Acorn treats American spy fans to this ITC classic for the first time. The titular Man in a Suitcase, McGill (Richard Bradford) is a spy disavowed by American Intelligence after being set up, forced to take jobs as a freelancer operating out of London. (When you're burned, you're burned!) Man in a Suitcase has a reputation as being darker and grittier than other popular ITC series like The Saint and Danger Man, and it is... but it's still not as dark and certainly not as bleak as something like Callan. In fact, it strikes a happy medium likely to appeal in equal measure to fans of Callan and The Saint. Acorn's Set 1 (in a very attractive four-disc flipper case) contains the show's first fifteen episodes, amounting to half of its entire first season. It doesn't include any of the extras found on the Region 4 or Region 2 releases, but it does look amazing–better than I've ever seen it look before. The weird thing is the order that the episodes are presented in. I guess it must be the original broadcast order, though it's not production order. The upshot is that the first episode produced, "Man From the Dead," which serves wonderfully as a pilot and sets up the show's premise, doesn't come until Disc 2. Acorn's set instead begins with "Brainwash," which is certainly a flashier episode less bogged down by exposition, but not really a great one to start with. I'd recommend watching "Man From the Dead" first. Also among the fifteen episodes in this set are "Variation on a Million Bucks, Part 1" and "Variation on a Million Bucks, Part 2," notable because they were edited together into the feature film To Chase a Million for theatrical release in Europe, making this the first official Region 1 release of that Eurospy movie, albeit in two parts. Retail is $59.99, but Amazon's got it for $44.99.

Wish Me Luck: Series 2
Acorn alone is spoiling spy fans today. In addition to Man in a Suitcase, the company also releases Wish Me Luck: Series 2. While Series 1 of this fact-based, wartime espionage drama about the women who worked for Britain's Special Operations Executive and parachuted into occupied France to risk their lives for their country had seen a Region 1 release prior to Acorn's reissue, Series 2 has never before been available on DVD in the U.S. Spy favorite Julian Glover co-stars with Kate Buffery, Lynn Farleigh, Jane Snowden and Jane Asher. Retail is $39.99, but it's currently ten bucks cheaper on Amazon.

RED
One of last year's most entertaining spy movies, RED, is out today from Summit Entertainment as a Special Edition DVD, a Special Edition Blu-ray and a movie-only Blu-ray. Some of the intriguing extras on the DVD include deleted and extended scenes and an audio commentary with Retired (but presumably not Extremely Dangerous) CIA field officer Robert Baer (the model for George Clooney's character in Syriana, who also recently contributed to a featurette on the From Paris With Love DVD). The Blu-ray contains all that as well as an "Access: RED" feature boasting "a variety of scene-specific features including interviews with cast members, animated documentary shorts on controversial CIA operations, and more." Sounds cool! RED stars Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Karl Urban, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Mary Louise Parker, Richard Dreyfuss and Brian Cox. Read my full review here.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Music Box Films releases the final Swedish adaptation of Stieg Larsson's international phenomenon The Millennium Trilogy today on both DVD and Blu-ray. (Daniel Craig stars in an American take on the material filming now.) The series started as a very, very dark sort of Agatha Christie-type mystery with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, then ventured into Robert Ludlum territory in its second installment, The Girl Who Played With Fire and finally blossoms into a full-fledged spy thriller in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. I've only seen the first movie so far (which was quite good), but I loved the books and I'm eager to see the others. If you haven't gotten any of them yet, though, and think you'll want them all, you might want to hold off for The Stieg Larsson Trilogy, which will collect all three films, along with an exclusive bonus disc, available on both DVD and Blu-ray next month.

Operation C.I.A.

From the Warner Archive comes their first foray in quite a while into Sixties spydom... Operation C.I.A. starring a young, mustacheless Burt Reynolds. Their website promises "An exploding motorbike. Air-conditioning ducts spewing cyanide gas. Terrorists, beautiful women, lethal snakes, butt-kicking action and a young Burt Reynolds: Operation C.I.A. has ’em all!" Well, yes, technically I guess it does. (Though the action really isn't that "butt-kicking.") But you can kind of tell from that copy that they're grasping at straws to make this rather dull 1965 entry in the global spy sweepstakes sparked by the success of 007 sound more interesting than it really is. But maybe Operation C.I.A. (which is kind of a bad name for a clandestine spy operation, if you think about it) is one of those movies that takes on a whole new life when you finally see a high-quality version instead of the shoddy transfer that's been circulating for years. I'm probably going to find out. Because while the copy doesn't sell me on it... I have to admit, that cover art does. That's the kind of poster that will have me shelling out hard-earned cash for a movie I know is a bit of a stinker! As I'm sure everyone knows, Warner Archive titles are made to order, burnt on demand on DVD-Rs.

The Kremlin Letter

John Huston's all-star spy drama The Kremlin Letter, long conspicuously absent on DVD despite frequent airings on the Fox Movie Channel, finally makes it to disc today as the first title in Fox's new limited edition specialty line, Twilight Time. Adapted from the novel by Noel Behn, The Kremlin Letter follows a young Naval Intelligence officer (Patrick O'Neal) recruited by a network of aging spies to retrieve a letter critical to American Intelligence from Moscow. The impressive cast includes Orson Welles, George Sanders, Dean Jagger, Nigel Green, Max von Sydow, Richard Boone, Raf Vallone and Huston himself. Twilight Time is intended as Fox's answer to the MOD programs at Columbia, Warner Bros. and other companies, with one major difference: these are factory-pressed DVDs, not burnt DVD-Rs. In the interest of keeping things classy and giving consumers their money's worth, Fox also plans to include special features on these discs. They're supposed to be available exclusively through Screen Archives Entertainment, and The Kremlin Letter is supposed to be available today... but I can't find any sign of it so far. Keep your eyes peeled! In the meantime, read more about Twilight Time and The Kremlin Letter here.

Basil Dearden's London Underground

Finally, The Criterion Collection issues another one of its feature-free but still high-quality Eclipses Series sets, Eclipse Series 25: Basil Dearden's London Underground. There is no spy movie in this collection, but there are a lot of elements that will appeal to spy fans among these Sixties classics. Foremost among them is the Region 1 DVD debut of a rare Patrick McGoohan movie, All Night Long.  All Night Long is basically a jazz Othello, casting McGoohan in the Iago role. Real-life jazz legends like Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck, and Avengers composer Johnny Dankworth also appear. Besides this McGoohan rarity, spy fans might want to look out for genre stalwart Dirk Bogarde (Modesty Blaise, Hot Enough For June) giving a stellar performance in Victim, and Richard Attenborough and Bryan Forbes in The League of Gentlemen, the movie that set the template for dozens of heist movies to follow. (And in many ways Mission: Impossible.) Retail for the 4-disc set is $59.95, but after seven other titles, surely you know the drill: cheaper online!

So... enough spy DVDs for you this week? Cripes, that was nearly as much work as the Holiday Shopping Guide! Hopefully we won't all have to wait until next Christmas to get all these titles...

Network Brings The Persuaders! And Other ITC Shows To Blu-ray In 2011!

Today Network revealed that the UK company would release classic Sixties and Seventies ITC series on Blu-ray in 2011.  (They tested the waters with an excellent Blu-ray Prisoner set last year.)  Since many of these shows were originally filmed in 35mm, they should actually benefit from high-definition transfers, unlike TV shows filmed on 16mm or video.  First up appears to be The Persuaders!, which, as regular readers will no doubt surmise, makes me very happy.  That series has had some good DVD releases in variously countries and regions, but it still hasn't seen a definitive remastering that shows it to its maximum potential.  Hopefully this release will do that! 

Even before The Persuaders! gets a series release, however, Network will release three sampler Blu-rays, under the "retro-Action!" banner, showing off select episodes (generally good choices, in my opinion, although I think there are better episodes of Return of The Saint than "One Black September"–particularly "Duel in Venice") of lots of ITC series in HD.  These samplers are all listed as Region B, meaning that they won't be playable on standard North American Blu-ray players.  (Many more Blu-rays than DVDs are actually released region-free, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.)  retro-ACTION!: Volume 1 includes what might be my favorite Persuaders! episode, "Chain of Events" (directed by Peter Hunt!), along with Department S ("A Small War of Nerves"), The Champions ("The Invisible Man," a great one) and episodes of Strange Report and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). Volume 2 showcases the color series of The Saint ("The Queen's Ransom," a great episode), the hour-long Danger Man ("No Marks for Servility"), Man in a Suitcase ("Somebody Loses, Somebody... Wins?") and Gideon's Way.  Volume 3 showcases the half-hour Danger Man ("View From the Villa," which was filmed in Portmeirion), The Invisible Man ("Secret Experiment"), The Baron ("Something for a Rainy Day"), Return of The Saint ("One Black September"), The Zoo Gang ("Revenge: Post Dated"), Shirley's World and The Adventures of Robin Hood. (Who would have imagined–Shirley's World on Blu-ray?) All three volumes are expected on February 28, 2011, and will retail for £19.99 apiece–though they'll each be available from Network's website for £15.99. 

This is very exciting news!  I hope that the series releases turn out to be region-free, though, because if they're not, I'll probably end up shelling out for a multi-region Blu-ray player.  The chances of American releases of some of these shows seems unlikely, though since A&E did put out The Prisoner and Space: 1999 on Blu-ray, I suppose The Persuaders! at least has a chance... Fingers crossed!

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Interpol Calling

Network will unearth another early spy(ish) gem from the ITC vaults next month, the complete 1959-60 series Interpol Calling.  I see Interpol shows like this and The Man From Interpol (and I think there were others, too) as the not-so-missing link between the detective shows popular in the Fifties and the spy shows that dominated in the Sixties.  A jetsetting detective, who, in this case, covers ground from London to Paris to Mexico to Sweden to the Himelayas to Swiss ski resorts, is basically a spy in all but the particulars of the cases he handles.  And at the height of the Cold War, it was inevitable that even those sometimes veer into the realm of international intrigue. Spy plots on Interpol Calling ranged from dead NATO couriers found in sleeping compartments on the Orient Express to South American coups d'etat to political assassination to the usual (for that era) escaped Nazi war criminal plotlines. But for me, the jetsetting is one of the most important aspects of a spy show, and Interpol Calling had that in spades–in the stages-and-stock-footage ITC manner, anyway. Network describes the series thusly:

World crime is his target. Intelligence and style are his most deadly weapons. When Interpol’s Inspector Paul Duval is on the case, international criminals are on the run. Tracking his targets from searing sand dunes near the equator to icy peaks at the ends of the earth, the unstoppable investigator risks his life daily in a global race against time. He has the persistence of Columbo and the style of Holmes – and not even the most elusive fugitive can hide when he is on the hunt. Hungarian-born Charles Korvin stars as the intrepid Paul Duval, while Edwin Richfield is fellow Interpol investigator Mornay in this classic ITC series.

All the usual ITC suspects show up as guest stars, indluding Donald Pleasence, Walter Gotell, Cec Linder, Douglas Wilmer, Hazel Court, Alfred Burke, Barbara Shelley and the ubiquitous Walter Gotell, among many others.

This release contains all 39 half-hour, black-and-white episodes, which originally aired in 1959 and 1960. Special features include Network's usual "extensive image galleries" and PDF material, the latter of which can sometimes prove much more interesting than it sounds. 

Interpol Calling: The Complete Series will retail for £49.99 but will be available to pre-order for £10 less from Network's website beginning tomorrow (December 1).  It starts shipping the following week (December 8).

Tradecraft: Pierce Brosnan Returns To Television

The spy news just keeps flying today! Deadline reports that Pierce Brosnan is plotting a return to television, where he got his start as Remington Steele more nearly three decades ago.  The untitled show, from Sony Pictures Television and JAG and ER writer-producer Jack Orman, has a very ITC ring to it, which I like.  It's about an international private investigator.  Put "international" before "private investigator" and you've almost got "spy!"  The premise, according to the trade blog, "centers on a 'fixer,' [a] private investigator specializing in international crisis intervention who is called in to help solve homicides, abductions, financial schemes and other crimes anywhere in the world."  Sounds a lot like it could be an ITC series out of Sixties Britain, doesn't it?  I love that!  (In fact, it sounds very much like Strange Report with a more global scope.) Deadline goes on to reveal that the series "is largely based on the real-life experiences of international PI Logan Clarke, head of the Los Angeles-based Clarke International Investigations."  Now here's the catch: "Brosnan won't play the lead, but is expected to have a smaller role on the show in the vein of Hugh Jackman's involvement on Viva Laughlin, which also was  produced by Sony TV." D'oh.  That's a bit disappointing, because, seriously, how awesome would Brosnan be as an international troubleshooter?  I don't want to see him as the guy stuck behind a desk who sends a younger hero off on his assignments!  Hopefully his role will be more substantial than that.  Still, the man's got a film career to think about.  (Very possibly fuelled by an Oscar nomination this winter!)  He probably can't commit to star on a TV series.  Instead he's producing, through his Irish DreamTime company, and lending his celebrity in whatever capacity it ends up being to make the series more appealing.  The strategy seems to be working.  Owing to Brosnan's star presence, the trade blog reports that the project is likely to go directly to series, bypassing the usual pilot process.  Sony is currently shopping it to international broadcasters with the goal of landing pre-sales overseas before taking it to U.S. networks.

You know, with Brosnan doing television again (and speaking of shows that are sold to international markets before going to American networks), I can't help but wish he were doing the new Saint series that Roger Moore and Co. are producing.  I know, I know; Brosnan's way too old to be Simon Templar nowadays... but he's just so right for the role, I'd love to see it anyway! 

Bargain Alert: Network Halloween DVD Sale This Weekend

UK DVD company Network (a name well known to spy fans) is having a Halloween sale this weekend.  (At least I think it's a Halloween sale... but it's couched in what appear to be British sitcom references that go way over the head of this American.) They bill this as their last sale of 2010, so don't expect another one before Christmas.  (However, I'd be willing to bet we'll see their annual winter sale at the end of January.)  It's a good sale: 35% off the already discounted prices on pretty much their entire inventory, excluding pre-orders and recent releases.  (The fine print also gives Network the right to exclude whatever they feel like excluding, but that doesn't seem to be very much as far as I can tell.)  For American spy fans with multi-region DVD players, be aware that the company's usual overseas shipping caveat applies with a hefty £40 surcharge on orders over a certain weight.  But if recent sales are any indication, this is easily avoidable by ordering your items seperately.  If you want to get a huge set, it might kick in though. 

Network has churned out a steady flow of amazing spy releases over the summer. This is a great opportunity to pick up many of those DVDs and soundtrack CDs cheaply.  Some to consider (although I haven't checked all of these to see if any might be excluded): The Saint: Original Soundtrack (review here), The Zoo Gang: Original Soundtrack (review here), Codename: Kyril (review here), The Corridor People: The Complete Series (review here), Saracen: The Complete Series (review here), The Four Just Men, Mr Palfrey of Westminster, The Protectors: The Complete Series, The Prisoner: The Ultimate Set or any of Network's many other spy DVDs or impressive ITC series soundtracks. International buyers, please be aware that all of Network's DVDs are PAL Region 2 releases, and you need a multi-region player (or at least a computer equipped with the free software VLC Player) to watch them.

The sale runs through midnight (GMT, presumably) on Sunday.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Man In A Suitcase Arrives In America!

Early next year, Acorn Media will release one of the crucial Sixties ITC spy series hertofore absent from U.S. shelves: Man in a Suitcase, starring Richard Bradford. Bradford plays McGill, a disgraced former CIA agent now exiled to Europe where he sells his services as a detective, bounty hunter and freelance spy–albeit one with a strict moral code.  The series has a harder edge than most ITC adventure shows like The Saint and The Champions, though it does feel like a logical follow-up to Danger Man, for which it was envisioned as a replacement when Patrick McGoohan quit to make The Prisoner instead.  Despite the darker tone, lots of regular ITC faces show up as guest stars including Stuart Damon, Donald Sutherland and Bernard Lee, as well as Hammer beauty Barbara Shelley. 

Man in a Suitcase lasted one thirty-episode season and also spawned one of those "movies" made by editing a two-parter together for theatrical release in Europe, To Chase A Million. I think the film (or at least its titles and any original bridging material) was included on Network's Region 2 release, but we have no word yet on whether that or the interview with Richard Bradford (or any of Umbrella's Region 4 extras) will be ported over to the Region 1 set.  In fact, we don't even know price, date or configuration.  It seems likely that Acorn will divide the series into at least two sets given their previous releases.  All we know is that the first(?) release will occur in early 2011, and we should have more details soon. 

Man in a Suitcase also boasts an awesome soundtrack by Albert Elms and Ron Grainer, and it's one of Network's best ITC soundtrack releases to date. Highly recommended!

R.I.P. Tony Curtis

One half of The Persuaders! is gone.  It's with great sadness that I mark the passing of Tony Curtis, who died yesterday of a heart attack at the age of 85.  It's kind of weird that I've blogged so little over these past four years (four years?!) about the two spy shows I love the most, The Avengers and The Persuaders!, but I've just been exploring other, more obscure shows in the time I've been blogging instead.  Eventually, I will go back to those first loves and it will feel like coming home.  But coming home to The Persuaders! won't quite be the same knowing that Tony Curtis is no longer in this world. 

The Persuaders! hinged on the chemistry of its two stars, Curtis and Roger Moore (or "Curtis + Moore" as the pair were equably billed on the same screen), and their interplay is what makes it a favorite of mine.  I'll admit, it was Moore (unsurprisingly) who first attracted me to The Persuaders!, but I quickly realized that Curtis played an equal part in making it great.  And the show made me love him.  Sure, I was familiar with his more famous film work before seeing it, but bore no particularly strong feelings one way or the other.  But his performance as the freewheeling American adventurer Danny Wilde, impetuous, contrary and always gloved, made me see a different side of Tony Curtis and gave me a new appreciation for his talents.  In fact, I would rank his work in its pilot, "Overture," right up there with his most famous film performances.  The Persuaders! is likely to be little more than a footnote in most obituaries, but hardly anything better displayed the actor's great charm and wit.  Which isn't to say he didn't have a hell of a career before it, as well. 

For an actor who dabbled in many, many genres over the years, Curtis (born Bernie Schwartz) played surprisingly few spy roles (although he spawned a daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, who went on to star in a pretty big one, True Lies).  Besides The Persuaders! (which, like all ITC shows, featured espionage plots with reliable regularity), Curtis' only notable spy role that I can think of off the top of my head was in the somewhat execrable Who Was That Lady? (1960) with Dean Martin and Curtis' then wife Janet Leigh. But The Persuaders! alone (even if his character isn't a professional secret agent) ensures Curtis a prominent spot in Spy Star Valhalla.  He can also claim (in a tangiential spy connection) to have worked with three Bonds.  In addition to working with Moore on The Persuaders!, Curtis also made The Mirror Crack'd, with Pierce Brosnan (in a very small, uncredited role) and the infamous Sextette with Timothy Dalton.

Curtis' early career, marked by lots of frothy matinee idol roles, saw him quickly categorized as a lightweight actor. Such generalizations, however, ignore some impressive early parts, like the title role in the 1953 biopic Houdini. Critical acclaim did come, though, for strong dramatic turns in movies later in the Fifties like The Sweet Smell of Success, The Defiant Ones (for which he earned an Oscar nomination) and of course Billy Wilder's classic drag comedy Some Like It Hot (a role he wasn't above riffing on later in his career, from absurd Seventies sex farces like the guilty pleasure Some Like It Cool - also starring spy sirens Marisa Mell, Sylva Koscina and Britt Ekland - to a hilarious reference on The Persuaders!).

He took some heat for his Bronx accent when playing in historical dramas and swashbucklers like Spartacus, The Vikings and The Black Shield of Falworth ("Yonda lies da castle of my fadda!"), but the truth is he's pretty awesome in them.  I love his performance in Spartacus!  Curtis himself was fond of pointing out that a stuffy British accent was no more accurate to ancient Rome than his own Bronx brogue, except that conventions had dictated us to expect it.

Curtis considered the Sixties the nadir of his career (up to that point anyway; he couldn't have imagined the Eighties!), which was revived the following decade on TV.  But many of my personal favorite Curtis movies come from that decade, including the zany race caper Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies, a terrifying turn as The Boston Strangler and my own favorite Curtis movie, Don't Make Waves (1967).  Seriously, when everybody else is paying homage this weekend by watching Some Like It Hot for the zillionth time, try this one instead (if you can find it).  It co-stars the luscious Claudia Cardinale and Sharon Tate, features an awesome Byrds title track and captures California culture on film better than anything from that decade besides The Loved One.

Tony Curtis was one in a million.  We've seen (again and again) the first half of his life unfold (in the guise of Danny Wilde) to one of the greatest theme songs of all time (courtesy of John Barry).  Now, for Persuaders! fans, at least, his afterlife is ensured to unfold to that theme as well, because with a show as good (if underrated) as that, and an equally imporessive filmography, Tony Curtis is truly immortal.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: The Prisoner: The Ultimate Set

Network has announced yet another UK DVD release of The Prisoner, this time as The Ultimate Set.  In addition to all of the truly wonderful features included on the company's 40h Anniversary Edition, Blu-ray set and current DVD set, The Ultimate Set also includes Network's 3-CD Prisoner soundtrack set and the 2009 remake of the series starring Ian McKellen and Jim Caviezel.  (The latter is also available on its own on DVD and Blu-ray from ITV Studios, and includes all the special features from the American DVD. It's not available on Blu-ray in the United States.)  I suppose the remake is the main selling point, but it doesn't really deserve that honor.  However, I kind of like that it's included, because it's basically found its proper place: as a DVD extra on the real series.  From that standpoint, it's easier to appreciate the remake.  It's a curio that one can watch after watching the Patrick McGoohan series.  It's for completists, and this Ultimate Set is a completist's dream.  While I'm sure most Prisoner fans who want them already own both series and the soundtrack, this is a good way for future fans to pick up everything at once.  The inclusion of the soundtrack music is much more attractive than that of the remake; again, its meticulous archival nature makes it a perfect DVD feature.  The set, packaged in an eyecatching if unweildy box, also includes the booklets originally available with Network's DVD and CD sets (by Andrew Pixley and Eric Mival, respectively).  I'm not sure if it includes the special features associated with the new version of the show, but I would assume so.  Overall, there's no reason to get this if you've already got the stuff it includes, but it's a pretty good archival collection for future generations.  Or Christmas present for this generation, which I'm sure Network's banking on!

The Prisoner: The Ultimate Set, a Region 2 PAL DVD release, will be available on October 25, 2010.  It will retail for £99.99, but is available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk for £74.99 and will be available from Network's website for just £62.99.

Read my original TV review of The Prisoner 2009 remake here.
Read my review of the 2009 Prisoner remake DVD here.

CD Review: The Zoo Gang: Original Soundtrack

I can’t remember if I’ve ever said this before in reviewing one of Network’s comprehensive ITC soundtrack sets, but one of the reasons I find these scores so appealing is because, being TV scores, they serve as sorts of digests for everything cool that’s happening in film music in their given era. Let me be clear: I do not mean this as a slight! That they are derivative does not mean that they aren’t creative. Quite the opposite, in fact. If the producers had merely slated in bits of existing movie scores or used total sound-alike bits, then they wouldn’t be fun and would probably detract from the shows in question. Instead, they hired very talented composers (including the great Ken Thorne, responsible for the music for The Zoo Gang) to synthesize what was popular, distill it to its essence, and regurgitate it in exciting and unexpected new ways, greatly enhancing the programs it accompanied. Because the ITC shows themselves were often reflections of big screen entertainment that was popular at the time (obviously Bond, but plenty of other influences as well), it’s only right that their music reflect that. There is no better capsule of an era in film music than an ITC soundtrack; what's going on in movies inevitably trickles down to television as well.

Case in point: The Zoo Gang. This short-lived series about a group of wartime resistance fighters now well past their prime but reunited first to bring to justice a traitor who betrayed them decades earlier and then to right new wrongs lasted only six episodes in 1974, but the incidental music for those episodes plays like “Now That’s What I Call Film Music 1974.” From the bold staccato track that opens Disc 1 and will instantly evoke George Martin’s first cue in Live And Let Die for Bond fans to the funky Paul McCartney theme tune this disc (like that Bond soundtrack) segues into, to even more funky, Roy Budd-ish action music to even the occasional T-Rexian riff, The Zoo Gang represents the very best in music of its era. The mere fact that Paul and Linda McCartney were hired to compose and perform (along with Wings) the theme bespeaks an ITC much more attuned to its era–and particularly the youth culture of its era–than the last time the company mounted a show about reunited war veterans more than a decade earlier in The Four Just Men.  That series about older heroes offered no concessions to the younger generation who would become television's biggest market; in fact there was an episode about how the remarkably out-of-it heroes couldn't even understand them.  A show with leads all in their fifties or above might seem like a strange match for a Wings song, but I think that was actually a canny strategy on ITC's part to lure younger viewers.  (Sadly, it seems to have failed.)

Disc 2 offers an equal variety of musical influences to that on Disc 1. Track 21 is a somber, even mournful orchestral piece that evokes Nino Rota’s score for The Godfather. The suspenseful, exciting track 24 (and tracks 36-38 of alternate versions) sounds like it could easily be torn from one of those great, funky Hammer scores of the early Seventies like Dracula AD 1972 or The Satanic Rites of Dracula. Other tracks offer the perfect cocktail of smooth, Seventies lounge music, akin to Laurie Johnson’s Jason King music (or John Barry’s 1971 Diamonds Are Forever score, to which I also compared Johnson’s music).

While there’s something to please every musical taste (well, at least every Seventies-leaning musical taste, anyway) on The Zoo Gang soundtrack, it’s by no means a hodgepodge. Ken Thorne (Help!, Inspector Clouseau) brings all of these disparate sounds together and skillfully blends them in service of the show. While I obviously appreciate the many different musical genres he touches on, the end result is very much his own. In fact, I think it’s the best representation of Thorne’s work I've heard on CD. (I have most of his officially released soundtracks save for that awesome-looking, super-expensive Superman box set that includes his music and his arrangements of John Williams’ music for Superman II and III.) It’s great original music, great arrangements of the McCartney theme and great music for the show itself. (To me, nothing better evokes the South of France as the ultimate Seventies vacation destination!) Furthermore, it all sounds great on Network’s release. (Even the alternate takes, amidst which Thorne can occasionally be heard talking to the orchestra–but far less detrimentally than the frequent vocal intrusions on the Laurie Johnson Avengers CDs–sound terrific, and don’t get as repetitive as some of Network’s sometimes frustratingly thorough compilations.) And none of these ITC shows sound cheap*; the studio didn’t skimp when it came to recording stellar scores.

I’ve said many, many times before that my own personal Soundtrack Holy Grail is Thorne’s music for The Persuaders!, of which we received one meager incidental cue on Network’s Best of ITC collection. It’s been said that the music is lost; it’s also been said that it’s been recently found. I choose to remain optimistic and hold out hope that one of these days, Network will release a set as wonderful–and hopefully at least as complete–as this one. In the meantime, though, The Zoo Gang: Original Soundtrack is as close as you can get. Even if you’ve never seen the series, if you enjoy Thorne’s work on The Persuaders!, you’ll enjoy this too. (Despite its older heroes, The Zoo Gang shares a similar tone and French Riviera location with The Persuaders!) The Zoo Gang is Seventies television music at its very best, and probably my favorite release yet in Network’s ongoing series of ITC soundtracks. This is essential spy music–essential for fans of the show, for fans of Thorne, for Beatles fans and Paul McCartney completist, and essential for fans of the studio and the genre at large. The Zoo Gang itself is a fun series, but by no means essential. Its music, however, is!

In Britain, The Zoo Gang: Original Soundtrack is available for £15.99 as a Web Exclusive from Network's site. In America, it can be ordered from Screen Archives Entertainment for $29.95. You can listen to a good representative sampling of the music here.

*A lot of Thorne’s best music is besot by cheap-sounding recordings. He wrote some wonderful themes for Lassiter–and I’m grateful to have that obscure score on CD thanks to BSX–but it sounds like it was recorded by a three-piece orchestra. The same can sadly be said of his Superman work (at least compared to The London Symphony Orchestra’s bombastic and enthusiastic performance of Williams’ score to the first movie), though I hear FSM has worked wonders to make it sound better than ever on that box set.

New Spy DVDs Out This Week: Ghosts And Just Men

The big domestic release this week comes from Summit Entertainment, who offer Roman Polanski's superb Pierce Brosnan thriller The Ghost Writer in both DVD and Blu-ray/DVD combo formats.  Thankfully, both versions include the same special features: "The Cast of The Ghost Writer" (cast interviews), "The Ghost Writer: Fiction or Reality?" (an interview with Robert Harris, screenwriter and author of the novel the film is adapted from) and "An Interview With Roman Polanski" (self-explanatory–and presumably conducted in Switzerland!).  Retail is $40.99 for the Blu-ray and $26.99 for the DVD, but of course if you know where to shop you won't have to pay anything like that.  Amazon's currently got them for $26.99 and $16.99 respectively. (Just follow the links above.)  Read my full review of The Ghost Writer here.

Meanwhile, in the UK we have yet another ITC spy release from Network.  (Another week, another awesome Network release!)  This time it's one of the studio's earliest efforts at a contemporary adventure series, The 4 Just Men: The Complete Series.  Jack Hawkins, Richard Conte, Vittorio de Sica (yes, that Vittorio de Sica) and Dan Dailey play four WWII veterans in disparate professions and geographic locations who make a pact to fight injustice.  Each half-hour episode (after the pilot) focuses on just one of the just men at a time (though another generally pops up in a cameo to maintain continuity), giving the show an interesting, if uneven, feel.  Their professions include the likes of lawyer, crusading reporter and even member of Parliament, but their actual business (as usual for ITC) generally entails exposing traitors and busting up spy rings.  Each just man has his own supporting cast, and for Dan Dailey that means a very young Honor Blackman playing his French secretary.  Her character is certainly not as liberated as Cathy Gale, but she does get a surprising amount to do and isn't just the typical Fifties secreteary.  The plots are predictable and the action is fairly staid as ITC finds its feet for this sort of thing, but the half-hour run time goes by quickly and ITC fans will definitely want to take a look.  The 4 Just Men, a PAL Region 2 five-disc set, is currently available only as a Network Exclusive from the company's website for £39.99. Watch this space for a full review coming soon!

CD Review: Jason King: Original Soundtrack

At only two discs, Jason King is among the shortest in Network’s parade of ITC soundtracks. Whether that’s because it had a relatively small amount of original music commissioned for it to begin with or because only a small portion of what was recorded survives, I don’t know. I’m sure Andrew Pixley does and probably says so in his liner notes (if his other, absolutely excellent booklets are anything to judge by), but my review copy sadly didn’t include liner notes. Not being as intimately familiar with Jason King as with certain other ITC shows (I actually adore the quirky but flawed series, but as brilliant as the flamboyant Peter Wyngarde is, I find he’s best enjoyed in small doses), that inhibits my ability to pinpoint exactly where any given cue comes from in the series, so instead I’ll provide my overall impressions of the album.

For a series as irrevocably (hopelessly?) mired in the 1970s as Jason King, its soundtrack is surprsingly not. For composer Laurie Johnson, it would be The New Avengers (and later The Professionals) where he explored his fondness for wah-wah guitars and 70s funk sounds. Jason King sounds more like the louche lounge life embodied by Serge Gainsbourg, which is entirely appropriate for the character, but which I associate more with the late Sixties. After all, this was still only the very beginning of the Seventies, and the loungy score is somewhat akin to John Barry’s loungier tracks in Diamonds Are Forever the same year. Of course, invoking Barry is a bit misleading, because the Jason King music isn’t, for the most part, all that typically “spy” sounding. It’s appropriate to the show. When you think of Jason King, you don’t necessarily immediately conjure up double- and triple-crosses, betrayals and chases, although the series does have all of that. No, the first thing you think of (or I do, anyway) is purple cravats and a general abundance of hair, signet rings and silk shirts unbuttoned far too far for comfort, champagne and beautiful girls in bell bottoms and overstuffed furniture in gaudy colors. And the music does its job; it evokes all of that when listened to. Track 6 on Disc 1 in particular exemplifies the Swinging (early) Seventies lounge life, but pretty much all the tracks get across the appropriate mood.

That said, there are some terrific action cues buried amidst the cool, easy listening material. Tracks 17-20 on the first CD are all action-packed, and could just as easily accompany the suavest secret agent as well as a slick buffoon in a bouffant. And Track 25 is as propulsive an action cue as any spy fan could hope for. In the context of the album, however, these cues become swallowed up by the overall loungy vibe. In general, this isn’t the kind of spy music you put on when you want to speed through traffic; this is the kind of spy music you put on when you want to pour yourself a martini or three, lie back in your most decadent love seat and exchange flirtatious banter with your favorite long-haired, bikini-topped babe or hairy-chested, mustached man. I love both the action and lounge schools of spy sounds, and enjoy being able to select between Jason King and, say, Danger Man as the mood strikes me. Jason King is anything but typical, but it’s a worthwhile addition to a robust spy music library.

Jason King: Original Soundtrack is available in the UK exclusively from Network's website; in America it's available from Screen Archives Entertainment, where you can also listen to samples.

More Extras For Network's Protectors

Network's recently announced UK release of The Protectors has been delayed by a few weeks... but it's for a good reason: so that the company can add some extra features.  Now don't get too excited; it's nothing huge, but the point is it's something.  The Protectors: The Complete Series will now come out in the UK on August 23, and feature French and Spanish title sequences in addition to the previously announced photo galleries and PDF features.  I don't know if that means Tony Christie singing in other languages or not, but I'd be curious to see...  It's still not a slew of bonus material, but I'm happy the company is so dedicated to putting on whatever they've got, even if it means a delay.  Read all about Network's Region 2 Protectors release here.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: The Protectors

Speaking of Robert Vaughn, his other spy-ish series is headed back to DVD. Network has announced The Protectors: The Complete Series for release in the UK on August 9. I really enjoy The Protectors (particularly the second season, which is far superior to the first one), but I'd be hard-pressed to actually describe the premise.  So I'll let Network handle that one:

Each of the world’s major cities has its best detective agency, and each of these has its best agents; super-agents like The Protectors. The most sensitive, baffling, dangerous assignments are handled by this trio of adventurers with no equal among private eyes. In their nerve-tingling assignments, they function as a highly trained team, but they know that the next mission might mean death – and they live as if each moment were their last. Robert Vaughn stars as Harry Rule, the suave American who leads their operations and works from a London office; Nyree Dawn Porter is the elegant, Rome-based Contessa di Contini, and Tony Anholt is Paul Buchet, a French agent operating out of a Paris apartment.

Okay, so that's the set-up?  Hm, I'm not sure the series itself, which aired from 1972-1974, ever made it totally clear.  (In fact, I always thought they all worked for Harry Rule's detective agency, not separate ones.) But that doesn't matter, because what it really amounts to (like just about any ITC series) is cool people (well, a cool boss, anyway, and a fairly attractive woman and a pretty useless "third guy" who's basically just a clothes horse for wonderfully horrible Seventies fashions–you know, par for the course!) travelling to exotic locations solving crimes and spying and fighting drug dealers and fencing frogmen and whatnot.  The very impressive actual location filming gives it the edge over many of ITC's more studio-bound series, and the music and theme song are incredible.  It's kind of tough to jam a wholly satisfying adventure plot into just a half an hour (or at least it was by this point; for some reason that art was lost after the original Danger Man series did it so well–and has yet to be rediscovered), but those stylistic elements overcome that minor fault.  The Protectors is very much style over substance, and that's fine by me.  Unlike most other live-action ITC adventure series, this one comes from the puppet-addled mind of the great Gerry Anderson, for once dabbling outside the realm of science fiction.  (And there are no puppets on The Protectors!) 

Since they've offered the superb soundtrack to the series (arguably its best feature, and possibly the best of all the ITC soundtracks yet available) for a year now I was actually surprised to realize that Network hadn't already issued The Protectors on DVD!  But they hadn't.  It was previously issued in the format (with a much less cool cover) by ITV Studios back in 2002, but has been long out of print in Britain.  In America, it's still available from A&E in two volumes (much, much cheaper used on Amazon than new!), and the first season is also included in their wonderful ITC sampler, The Spy Collection Megaset (also cheaper used).  Network's new release–sporting a cover stylish enough to befit this stylish show–is a 7-disc set containing all 52 half-hour episodes. Bonus materials are limited to PDF material (original brochure and press information) and a very extensive stills gallery. It will be available on August 9 and retail for £59.99, but can currently be pre-ordered through Network's website for just £38.99.

Zoo Gang Soundtrack Preview

Network has provided a suite of Ken Thorne score music from The Zoo Gang, previewing their latest (previously announced) ITC soundtrack due out next week.  This is fantastic!  I didn't remember the music from this show being so good, but I generally love Thorne's work, so I shouldn't be surprised.  It's Seventies easy listening lounge funk Nirvana!  Check out that really funky action groove that pops up about halfway through the YouTube selection!  Beatles fans might prefer to skip to the very end, when Paul McCartney and Wings' cool title music kicks in.  I think there are several variations of it on the CDs. 

DVD Review: The Sentimental Agent

When it’s good, The Sentimental Agent is very good. And when it’s bad, it’s very bad. This early ITC effort is a wildly uneven series based on a fairly tenuous premise, but it’s still absolutely worth buying for one particularly great episode. More on that in a minute. First, let’s focus on that tenuous premise. Honestly, I’m not sure why Harry Fine or Lew Grade or whoever came up with the show decided it would be a good idea to make a series about a debonaire import/export agent. Imports and exports? Really? That’s a profession so nebulous, so bland, so boring that Ian Fleming thought it would make the perfect cover for the British Secret Service in his Bond novels! Of course, those are exciting because it’s just that, a cover. Sadly not so in the case of The Sentimental Agent. Unlike James Bond, Carlos Varella (Carlos Thompson) really is in imports and exports. I suppose that there was still a certain bit of glamor attached to the profession at the height of the Jet Age, since it inherently meant dealing with far-flung regions of the world, but the glamor wears off quickly when the viewer realizes that Varella’s office (housed in a decidedly unglamorous warehouse) is basically just a big mail room. “Transport these goods to America, ASAP!” “Arrange insurance on this shipment!” “Oh no, this product is held up in customs! Quick, fill out a form! In triplicate!” Yes, if you’ve ever wondered how the mail room in your office building works (granted, on a slightly larger scale), then this is the show for you. Personally, I’ve spent a bit too much time working in such a mail room myself to find calculating insurance for an international package all that exciting.

Luckily for us, that’s not all that the show is limited to. You see, the basic formula for pretty much all ITC series at this time (all the contemporary ones, anyway), no matter what the hero’s occupation was, was for the writer to say, “Oh, he’s a ________ [insert import/export agent/international photojournalist/jet-setting playboy/antiques dealer/invisible man/whatever, as needed]? Okay, I’ll just write a story where he’s mistaken for a secret agent or somehow falls in with spies.” And that mentality suits this viewer just fine! In fact, I find it amazing that the same stable of writers managed to generate so many new plots spread out over so many series for what was essentially the same show over and over again. (I know, I know; sometimes they repeated themselves. Still!) Anyway, the basic formula was some guy with a somewhat exotic profession (or pointed lack of one) gets into adventures featuring international intrigue week after week. What the profession is generally doesn’t matter. So as long as the writers stick to the profession not mattering and just put appealing leading man Carlos Thompson in an interesting scrape of the week, the results tend to turn out pretty well. When they focus instead on his boring profession... not so much.

The Sentimental Agent was spun off from another black and white early Sixties ITC series, Man of the World. That show starred Craig Stevens (Peter Gunn himself) as Mike Strait, a globetrotting photojournalist who–you guessed it–got mixed up with spies and kidnappers week after week. (To be honest, that one didn’t have a super great premise either, but it at least sounded a bit more exciting than “import/export!”) Stevens must have wanted some time off one week, so in the episode “The Sentimental Agent” (which really should have been included as an extra on Network’s Sentimental Agent set, but is appallingly absent), his character gets arrested in Havana at the very beginning. His assistant, Maggie (Tracey Reed), turns to the suave rogue Carlos Barella (yes, they later changed his name), an import/export agent based (here) in Havana and Panama City. (Evidently, he relocated to London when he got his own series.) Not an altruistic do-gooder by nature (the “sentimental” moniker is at first intended ironically), he agrees to help but charges $5,000 for his services. He also conspires to profit from the situation on top of that. Straight is suspected of being an American spy, and soon Barella is caught up in a full-on spy plot involving kidnapped scientists, faked deaths and the beautiful Shirley Eaton (playing an American). It’s a pretty great episode–classic ITC–and in many ways the unscrupulous Barella makes a more interesting lead than the straight-edge Strait anyway. It’s easy to see why Grade greenlit his own series based on this very obvious backdoor pilot.

Unfortunately, Barella is not only stripped of his “B” in favor of a “V,” but also loses some of his rogueishness when he makes the transition to leading man. Still, Thompson is a charismatic actor, and clearly had the chops to carry a series–especially with the able assistance of an Aston Martin DB5! That’s right, Varella drives the coolest car of the decade–the same year that James Bond made it famous in Goldfinger. Varella’s DB5 logs most of its weekly mileage in the title sequence, unfortunately (accompanied by a strange–but catchy–theme song that manages to evoke neither the adventure nor the Latin flavor it clearly intends to), and never gets a great chase all its own or anything. In fact, in the first episode (presumably filmed before the title sequence), he actually drives a DB4. But after that, the DB5 lights up any episodes it turns up in, no matter how briefly. And it adds to the series’ spy cred. Not that it really needs adding to, as the very first episode is a full-on spy adventure.

In “All That Jazz,” Varella’s company, Mercury International, is importing a modern jazz quintet. Personally, I found this eye-opening, because I had no idea that you could actually import people–but apparently that’s one of the many exciting components in an import/export career! Anyway, Varella’s muppet-voiced assistant, immediately has trouble doing so, and has to call Varella to come to the airport himself. Apparently the band, The Arthur Rodgers Modern Jazz Quintet (“What extraordinary names these people do think up!” blusters the old MI5 man, demonstrating that he and I must subscribe to very different definitions of the word “extraordinary.”), are considered “undesirable aliens.” Aliens from where, exactly, isn’t entirely clear, since, like most jazz quintets, they’re comprised of white cockneys very clearly not alien to Britain. (I think they’re actually supposed to be American cockneys.) The undesirable part is far easier to understand. You see, wherever they go, Western secrets seem to leak in their path–and tonight they’re scheduled to play for the “Friends of Progress” or something equally Commie-sounding. Very suspicious indeed, as is their mysterious arranger who only sends the arrangements by Express Delivery at the last minute to whatever exotic location they’re playing in.

Varella shows up to do what must be done to get them into the country (one has to keep Special Branch well greased with Scotch) and the muppet-voiced assistant, Bill (Riggs O'Hara) prepares him. “Wait’ll you get aload of them!”

Varella furrows his eyebrows. “Beatniks?”

“The mostest ”

Ironically: “Can’t wait.”

Major Nelson of MI5 (Anthony Bushell) shares his department’s suspicions (and those of the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency) with Varella, recruiting him to keep an eye on the band and help MI5 figure out how the secrets are being smuggled. (You will have guessed already.) When Special Branch then releases the shaggy beatniks (including a young Jeremy Bulloch) into Varella’s custody, they launch an onslaught of hip slang (like “Hey, cats! Case the threads!” and “Knock off!” which Varella finds particularly bizarre) and irreverent humor. Only the attractive female xylophonist “Ms. Sarah James” (ITC mainstay Annika Wills) seems at all grown-up, and she flirts with Varella instead of cracking wise.

The first part of Varella’s undercover assignment is to accompany the band to their Friends of Whatever gig at the local Communist embassy that night. Varella requires a lot of briefing for a night out. First, his Chinese Jeeves, Chin (the great Burt Kwouk, who enlivens every scene he’s in), who is more attuned to English traditions than the non-specifically Latin Varella, briefs him on what color carnation to wear to this sort of event. Then Major Nelson gives him a code phrase to identify his MI5 contact: “I’d have thought classical music was more in your line.” To which Carlos is supposed to respond, “One tries to get with it.” Simple enough, right?

“Don’t you worry now,” the Major assures him. “Your contact is one of our very best girls.”

If you can’t predict Varella’s alarmed reply, “Girls?!” then you must not have ever seen any Sixties movies or television.

In keeping with the time and the same appalling attitude, Nelson mollifies him by with some further crucial information. “36-24-34. Don’t say we have your best interests at heart ”

Carlos retorts, “You certainly try to get ‘with it’” and seems very pleased with himself for doing so. Oh, he's "with it" alright!

Unfortunately, everyone at the concert seems more "with it" than Varella, and everyone thinks that classical music would be more in his line! Two girls and one guy tell him that, and he keeps saying “one tries to get with it” without knowing which one is the real contact. Too bad he didn’t bring his measuring tape with him. Actually, it probably wouldn’t have helped. When he finally meets the tiny brunette Tanya, she doesn’t really seem to measure up to the Major’s description.

When I mentioned an arranger who express ships the arrangements at the last minute before each gig (leaving poor Sarah “headed for Crackupville, USA unless this schnook gets hip enough to send the arrangements in time for me to learn them!”), you figured out how the secrets were being smuggled, didn’t you? Of course you did. So does Varella. In the course of the evening, he is able to use his knowledge gleaned from years of importing and exporting pianos to realize that “The middle register’s been re-tuned!” on one in the embassy. “Don’t you see? Musical notes are like the letters of the alphabet. Except that in this baby here, the order in which they run has been changed around. They must be using this instrument to decode the music those kids are playing this very minute! That's how the information is being passed.” So all the intelligence services needed this whole time was to hire an import/export guy with an ear for music!

Upon making this discovery, Varella awakens poor Bill with the perhaps the greatest urgent exclamation ever to awaken a sleeping assistant: “Bill! Get me a piano tuner right away!” It sounds even better in Thompson’s vaguely accented delivery.

When Tanya is kidnaped, Varella’s appalled when Major Nelson doesn’t lift a finger to help his agent, and for an episode with so many musical performances (even Carlos gets a solo), it takes a surprising turn into dark, Le Carré spy territory. “She’s a national of their country,” he explains cooly. “They have a perfect right to hold her, even send her back where she came from.”

“She works for you!” protests Varella. “Rather loyally I’d say.”

“Not anymore,” the spook reasons. “Her cover’s been broken; she’s no further use to us. Unfortunately, my job is security, not sentiment.”

Varella is, of course, a more (ahem) sentimental agent, so he disagrees. “Do you sleep well at night?” he asks.

“The day this job can be taken over by machines, I for one shall give three rousing cheers! We didn’t draft her into this you know. She came into it, with her eyes wide open.” I was surprised to see this otherwise lighthearted series make a left turn into Deighton territory so early, but sadly it’s not representative of what’s to come. Major Nelson has turned out to be a great spymaster character, but unfortunately he doesn’t recur. That doesn’t mean we don’t get some more healthy doses of espionage, though.

“Express Delivery” is a really great, old fashioned spy story through and through. Do you like that Man From U.N.C.L.E. where Napoleon is trapped behind the Iron Curtain and has to escape with a busload of school children? Or that Saint where Simon finds himself trapped in East Germany and has to run for the border? I do. I love border-crossing spy stories, and I love episodes of TV shows that put the main character in such a predicament. This is Varella’s turn, and it doesn’t matter if he’s an import/export agent or what; he’s simply got to get out.

Unlike many ITC shows, The Sentimental Agent uses real countries (usually). Varella is traveling in Poland, an Eastern Bloc country crawling with secret police and CIA agents and defectors and would-be defectors and phony defectors. He meets a beautiful blonde in a hotel bar who implores him to aid her in an escape to the West. But who does she work for? Varella knows he can’t trust her, but he opts to help anyway. Their escape plan puts them on a train ride with sinister sorts sharing the compartment (a shady priest who packs a gun, a seemingly obvious secret policeman, military types, etc.), fulfilling another of my favorite spy tropes: the train story. On top of all those shady characters, we have disguises and quick-changes and more wonderful genre staples at their best. Varella is caught up in the middle of all this, and ends up a pawn of both the secret police and the CIA in either helping a defector escape or else helping a fake defector be planted in Western intelligence. Great art direction with obvious backdrops on cobbled, Eastern European-feeling streets adds to the mystique making “Express Delivery” a standout example of the Cold War spy genre irregardless of the show it’s part of.

Even when not fully spy, we get plenty of the sort of mystery and intrigue typical of ITC series. “The Beneficiary,” for instance, follows a Maltese Falcon plot, wherein lots of mysterious parties including a Fat Man, an effeminate Peter Lorre-type (who Varella repeatedly disarms, recalling Bogie’s treatment of Elisha Cook, Jr.) and a femme fatale chase after a mysterious Macguffin. (Bringing a spy element to the table, the Macguffin turns out to be some sort of metallurgical formula that’s the key to creating a death ray!) Varella gets in on the action when his old Korean War buddy calls him up out of the blue from Lisbon, then gets himself shot while he’s on the phone (as happens). Naturally, Carlos hops the first flight to Portugal to avenge him. There’s no import/export plot in this episode, but Carlos does keep trying to sell people cases of stuff when he meets them. (He successfully interests the Lorre-like character in some sort of allergy medication and even tries to line up shipment of two crates as the guy’s trying to kill him!) “The Beneficiary” is a really solid example of great ITC-style entertainment.

The best episode of the bunch, however, and the one that makes this a must-buy set for spy fans (or at least for Avengers fans) is “A Very Desirable Plot,” written by Brian Clemens. This is the episode that marks the screen debut of Diana Rigg, and she’s absolutely riveting–no mean feat in such a throwaway series! Seriously! In a show as lightweight as you can get (sorry, Carlos), Rigg manages to elevate the material to the level of, well, The Avengers. (And that is high praise indeed!) You can absolutely tell during every moment she’s on screen that this beautiful young woman is going to be a star. Watch, for example, her subtle movement as she jumps back a little, sharply intakes her breath and straightens herself up as Varella passes by to leave in an early scene. It’s fantastic, seemingly spontaneous body language that adds a trillion more layers to her character than what’s written.

It’s a good part for her, too. Rigg plays Francy, an inquisitive, unstoppable young British woman and the daughter of a land buyer who’s been ripped off in a Bahamian land scheme blamed on Varella. She stands up for herself and for her father, and she’s disinclined to let poor Carlos off the hook even when he insists that he has nothing to do with this villain who’s been billing himself as his partner. In fact, her cat-like curiosity nearly derails Varella’s intricate, Mission: Impossible-like plan to out-con the bad guy and see all the swindled landowners become rich in the process.

NOTE: I would love to provide illustrative evidence of Diana Rigg's lovely presence, but I've been having trouble with my screen cap software and wasn't able to get any from that disc. 

Burt Kwouk gets a lot to do in “A Very Desirable Plot” as well, even if he has to talk like Charlie Chan to earn some extra screen time. Actually, that’s all part of the con. Varella instructs his able assistant, Miss Carter, that Chin should “wear what Charlie Chan would wear” when posing as a Chinese investor. The villain’s secretary notes the resemblance as well, and asks him, “Who are you? Charlie Chan?”

“Most flattered by resemblance to illustrious detective,” Kwouk replies in a perfect Chan cadence, “but regret cannot claim relationship.”

“A Very Desirable Plot” is not only the best episode of The Sentimental Agent, but an episode that could stand against the best of any ITC series. Strong, witty writing, a clever plot and solid performances all around are catapulted into the stratosphere by Diana Rigg’s barnstorming, force-of-nature television debut. If you’re an Emma Peel fan or a Diana Rigg fan, you simply must track this down!  (Also watch for a very young Donald Sutherland in a blink-or-you'll-miss-him role as a hotel receptionist.) 

Unfortunately, despite such strong episodes as I’ve so far discussed, The Sentimental Agent slides into mediocrity in the second half of its single season. The problems are twofold. Firstly, the plots start to focus less on con jobs and international intrigue and more on freight jobs and international trade–the very things you would expect of a show with this premise. Secondly–and probably more detrimentally–the charismatic Carlos Thompson ceases to be the lead of his own show, replaced in most of the later episodes by John Turner as Bill Randall, one of Varella’s employees. (Not the same character as his wonderfully muppet-voiced assistant Bill in the first episode.) Turner is weird-looking and generally less appealing. He’s also a terrible television actor. Perhaps he was a good stage actor, but those skills don’t always translate directly to other media. Performing as if he’s in a West End theater, Turner punctuates every line he utters (delivered stagily, from the diaphragm) with some sort of larger-than-life facial expression or stilted gesture. He might have made a decent ITC sidekick, but a TV lead he is not. (Decades later, however, he did an excellent job and made me laugh quite heartily as the very theatrical supporting role of Roderick Spode on Jeeves & Wooster.) It’s a pity that the estimable Mr. Kwouk wasn’t promoted to lead in Thompson’s absence instead, but apparently Britain wasn’t ready for an (actual) Asian television star. Kwouk does, at least, get to do more in these Varella-free episodes, which makes them bearable.

“Meet My Son, Henry” is a decent–if utterly unoriginal–spy story with the ever-reliable Vladek Sheybal as the baddie. The episode guest stars a kid in a leading role (the titular son Henry), which would usually spell doom for viewers, but this kid actually turns out to be far less annoying than he could have been (even if he is a big nerd) and a better actor than one would expect. Unfortunately, it features Bill as the lead, with Carlos only appearing in brief segments at the beginning and end. The plot is one you’ve seen a hundred times (a Scarecrow and Mrs. King comes readily to mind for me, since I watched that fairly recently); it’s the one where someone accidentally buys an obscure book at a bookstore that was actually a dead drop for foreign agents. In this version, the book is a rare first edition of a calculus book, the wrong person who picks it up is the kid (told you he was a big nerd!), and the secrets it contains are jet plans recently stolen from the “space agency.” (Did Britain really have one of those?) It’s up to Bill and Miss Carter to save the day. Along the way, we’re treated to lots and lots of filler footage of an “air ferry,” a giant cargo plane that transported people and their cars across the English Channel. It’s actually a pretty cool thing to see filler footage of today–and the second best thing about the episode, after Sheybal.

At least “Meet My Son Henry” had espionage. The same can’t be said for most of the Bill episodes. The title “Not Quite Fully Covered” unfortunately doesn’t apply to lovely guest star Imogen Hassell (who remains fully covered the entire time, unlike her memorable bikini-baring appearance on the first episode of The Persuaders! years later), but to a collection of art that her character wishes to insure for transportation from Beirut to London insured. “In order to do this,” one character remarks, “they need knowledge. They need someone with an expertise in... import and export.” Why, that’s Bill! Yep, this episode is about getting insurance coverage for an art collection. Really. Yay! Insurance agents! And not even the Bulldog Drummond/Eurospy variety. Just plain old, run of the mill insurance agents doing insurance things. Here’s a sample of some actual dialogue:

“But it is a legal point! The policy must be under the name of the owner of the property! It doesn’t matter who pays for the premium!”

And there’s lots more like that. Lots. The Sentimental Agent reaches its premature nadir as we watch Miss Carter aid Bill in navigating the ins and outs of the Sixties insurance racket as it pertains to international boat shipments. This one really reminded me of an average day in the corporate mailroom. (Which isn’t exciting.) Actually, just using the word “racket” makes the episode sound more exciting than it is. I should say “insurance bureaucracy.” At least writers Leslie Harris and Roger East managed to work in a punch-up in an underground chamber involving Burt Kwouk and dynamite to somewhat salvage this episode at the last minute. But if you think insurance sounds dull, just wait until you hear the plot of the series finale, which manages to be both dull and downright unethical at once

“Box of Tricks” finds Bill having a limited amount of time to bribe a certain number of officials in a small Mediterranean country in order for Mercury International to get a big contract. Yes, really; that is the plot. We are rooting for our unappealing lead to successfully grease the wheels for a shipping contract. At least he encounters a number of spy veterans in the process, including the beautiful Zena Marshall (Dr. No) and a young and much more hirsute Walter Gotell. The best part is when Bill is captured and Chin gets to take center stage (literally) for a bit–performing a magic show.

But the series does come to a happy ending: Bill and Miss Carter are going to get married! Yay! That’s what we care about! No, it’s not. We care about Carlos Varella, who is relegated to a terribly rear-projected boat with a beautiful girl at the beginning, then brief phone contact at the end to wish the happy couple well. Then we segue into the remarkably silly end credits, in which the same image of Carlos Thompson’s face (Panama hat and ever-present cheroot included) dances and flips around the screen, being squashed and distorted to accommodate the accompanying credit. It’s hilariously odd on every episode, but particularly out-of-place tagged onto the ones that don’t even star Thompson.

The Sentimental Agent is perhaps the most uneven show ITC ever produced. It goes from truly legitimate highs like “Express Delivery” and “A Very Desirable Plot” to nearly unbearable lows, like pretty much all of the Bill episodes. Overall, however, the highs do make the series worthwhile for ITC afficionados–and the lows are skippable. Some of the early episodes are truly among the studio’s very best output, and the stellar “A Very Desirable Plot” is a lost gem that every Avengers and Diana Rigg fan owes it to themselves to see. In the opinion of this self-confessed Rigg devotee, that alone makes purchase of the entire set worthwhile–and the other good episodes make a nice bonus!

As for actual bonus features, Network's DVD set may not include Carlos's introductory episode from Man of the World, but it does include a very nice interview with Burt Kwouk (Cato from the Pink Panther films) entitled "With This Face."  This is a very well-produced featurette, with interview footage interspersed with scenes from ITC shows.  Kwouk was in so many of these series (whenever they felt the need for an exotic Eastern setting, as he points out) that the featurette ends up doubling as a de facto introduction to ITC output.  He doesn't really offer any behind-the-scenes dirt (even on Gene Barry!), but he does share his generally positive recollections of each series and its stars.