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The Avengers '63, Set 2

The Avengers '63, Set 2

List Price: $39.95
Your Price: $35.96
Product Info Reviews

Features:
  • Black & White
  • Box set


Description:

"Whenever you wine and dine me, it's always a prelude to some hideous adventure." So complains a peeved Mrs. Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman) to gentleman spy John Steed (Patrick Macnee) in "The Golden Fleece," one of six vintage, rarely seen episodes from The Avengers' third season. Hideous, not so much, but certainly bizarre, as was the high style of this unconventional espionage series. In "The Grandeur That Was Rome," for example, infestation, crop failure, and soil erosion point Steed and Mrs. Gale toward a modern-day toga-partying Caesar bent on ruling the world. For Avengers aficionados, this set contains two episodes considered to be the best of the Cathy Gale era: "Fleece," in which renegade military officers rip off a Chinese gold smuggler to finance their operation to support needy ex-servicemen; and "Dressed to Kill," an almost Agatha Christie-like caper in which a New Year's Eve costume party aboard a train gets off track when the guests, all prospective owners of property near a radar station, meet fatal ends. Fueling the Mrs. Gale vs. Mrs. Peel debate is "Don't Look Behind You," which was later remade as "The Joker" (available in The Avengers '67: Set 3). Less inspired are "The Medicine Men," "Second Sight," and "Death à la Carte," but even the series' weakest episodes have their peculiar charms. Steed himself perhaps says it best in "The Golden Fleece" as he reads from his fortune cookie: "A steed is not known for its might, but for its thoroughbred qualities." --Donald Liebenson
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