glampunk
Crab On The Rampage
gloompunk; glitter goth: disciple of Rikki Nadir: demonik in disguise, etc.
Posts: 61
|
Post by glampunk on Mar 25, 2008 8:31:31 GMT
The AvengersBack to the charity shop again today. No more Persuaders videos but whoever is having a clear out obviously has taste as I found an Avengers double - The Bird Who Knew Too Much and ... the legendary A Touch Of Brimstone, better known on here as "the one where Diana Rigg gets dressed up in some kinds fetish swimsuit with a studded collar"! It's a great episode. The Hon. John Cleverly Cartney (Peter Wyngarde!) and his Hooray Henry pals have reformed the Hellfire Club. As part of the initiation ceremony, new recruits are expected to play a daring practical joke on somebody important. Poor Lord Darcy's wizard prang ends in murder and Steed and Emma Peel infiltrate the club - rather too well in Emma's case - she's elected the Queen of Sin. The pair discover Cartney's sinister gunpowder plot just in time to prevent him from blowing up the Cabinet. Sword fights, whip-wielding (at poor Emma!), a bloke with metal fingers ... Plenty of choice Brian Clemens cornball bad guy dialogue - "We believe in the power of evil, Mr. Steed. We believe in the ultimate sin" smarms one beastly cad - and the orgies are heralded with a lusty cry of "Let the wenching begin!" Haven't watched The Bird Who Knew Too Much yet, but nice to see that Emma manages to get herself tied up and gagged in that episode if the cover still is anything to go by. And people complained that the show exploited submerged S & M fantasies!
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jun 7, 2009 12:40:53 GMT
The big plan was to polish off The Fog, Reptile, Dr. Who & The Daemons and the rest of the 100 rotten books i have on the go and then set off on a mini- Confessions ... retrospective, but looks like 'Jonathan May' and his crummy jokes will have to wait a little longer after this juicy pair thrust themselves in my face at Spitalfields Market this morning. So which to start with? John Garforth - The Avengers #4: Heil Harris! (Panther, 1967) Did Hitler die in a bunker or is he celebrating his 78th birthday today and living in exile in Hertfordshire...? ...That's the question worrying Steed after meeting a certain 78-year-old Herr Harris who dreams of catastrophe and is clearly connected with mystic rites being practised in the Herts countryside. But Steed soon finds the world facing a far graver danger...
Emma Peel - elected dictator of Great Britain! or? John Garforth - The Avengers #1: The Floating Game (Panther, 1967) Looks like a no-brainer .... until you cop the brilliant blurb on the backside of ...Floating Game and suddenly things don't look so cut and dried: Jesus! Now days you're lucky if you get "Unputdownable"- The Sun and endorsements from Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell and/ or James Herbert on the flip.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jun 9, 2009 20:15:44 GMT
John Garforth - The Avengers: Heil, Harris! (Panther, 1967)
How to do this justice without rehashing the blurb? We're back in bloody Wiltshire again where Steed, convalescing after his latest mission, is working on his memoirs. He gets as far as the day he descended into Hitler's bunker at the close of WWII, gets bored, and nips out to the George & Dragon to reminisce with his old army colleague, Snowy Black-Hawkins (on this showing a strong Worst Pub Landlord candidate, especially if you happen to be German). Walking home after a skinful, Steed's musings about the Third Reich are interrupted by a fatal motorcycle 'accident' that mirrors the death of Nazi-defector Ernst Karnsten in '34 on this same stretch of road. As premises go for suspecting Hitler didn't die, and there's a Fascist uprising on the cards in England, this strikes me as flimsy, but that same night Swindon Synagogue is torched and daubed in swastika's so it's maybe best to trust in Steed's intuition.
Now we join Emma Peel at the local Hunt's Fancy Dress Ball (she's come as Dick Turpin), chatting with young David Simmons, a Jew dressed as an S.S. Officer in a desperate attempt to get local pretend-Nazi sympathisers 'The Werewolves' off his case. This crew are a bunch of odious Hooray Henry's and Henrietta's, no great shakes in themselves as Ms. Peel demonstrates when she toughs up snivelling Picton-Murbles-Gore, but these young tearaways have been taken under the wing of Colonel Hayburn who is soon telling Emma all about the big plan.
"We shall need a Hitler Youth movement and an atmosphere of violence to maintain our support, and we'll need several million Jews or Negroes who will be fair game for brutality. Perhaps even a few concentration camps for a while, to amuse our disrupted country. These are sops to the sadism of the people, and when we give them outlets for their sadism, they will give us power". He chuckled knowingly. "Politics is not a game for idealists, is it?"
Garforth's approach throughout is like that. Much of the novel keeps the good-time feel of the TV series with plenty of sassy dialogue and moments of comedy, but there are also sporadic bursts of totally unexpected nastiness in the form of a cruel prank on Simmons worthy of Charles Birkin story and some ice cold-blooded revenge killings. Colonel Hayburn is not the only Neo-Nazi who gets to spout authentic sounding Anti-Semitic sentiments and they're all the more shocking when bursting unexpected from what is otherwise a jolly fun, and very brisk (115 page) read.
Anyway. Emma effortlessly infiltrates the Werewolf organisation and learns of the forthcoming coup, while Steed is off in Bavaria, romancing the feisty Heidi Toppler whose recently assassinated father was a Brit agent during WWII. Heidi knows that the would-be English Fuhrer, Ludwig Harris (we don't get to see much of him; cold stare; has a wife named Eva, dog Blondi. Implication is he's the real Hitler, etc.), plans to finance his overthrow of Democracy with £7 worth of hidden Nazi loot and, in between near shags with Steed and getting conveniently tied up in a dungeon, she plays a leading role in thwarting Harris's plans but still never gets that shag which is bad luck all round. Emma is also taken to a torture chamber for interrogation, before Harris accepts she's just the Dictator he needs to front the party in Britain while he's organising the German end of the operation. Will the opportunity go to her head and, if so, can Steed stop her taking matters too far? Are they going to put that nifty Iron Maiden to good use or is it just another prop for Garforth's cheeky come on's?
A very strange read!
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jul 15, 2009 11:52:38 GMT
John Garforth - The Floating Game (Panther, 1967)
The American Mafia moves in on Britain —using a mocked-up 'Russian' spy ring as a front. Very clever. Emma and Steed rush around after Soviet operators who simply don't exist! But the best laid schemes of mice and men 'and Mafia .... Russian agents, the real thing, move in on the Mafia's fake set-up....
Sir Arthur Smeck-Hudson, Home Secretary, has been got at, nobbled by Tamara Petrova, butch Mad Scientist and supposed Russian defector. A noble gent at heart, Sir Arthur tops himself before MI5 can do the job. His is the first of a spate of mysterious deaths involving leftist MP's and, to get to the bottom of it, Steed stands for Parliament in the Brawhill by-election on a Tory-Liberal-Anarchist-Alt.Comedian ticket, terrifying his superiors when it becomes evident he could win by a landslide. While Steed is away charming the voters, Emma infiltrates the London Casino run by Curt Krystal, Mafia fatty, who is working in cahoots with Dr. Petrova. It transpires that the Mob have a down on the Socialist government and want them disgraced and replaced by a Capitalist-friendly Dictatorship. Emma, always game for some dressing up, dons her cowgirl uniform to work as a croupier at the Casino and catches the eye of not only Krystal but Dr. Tamara, who disguised as a man, gives her a blunt option: marry me or die! Will Steed be elected to the Commons? Will Tamara Petrova make an honest woman of Emma? Will the Mafia-Soviet alliance rule Britannia?
As with Heil Harris!, it's a pacy bastard with a few sudden, extremely jarring torture episodes - most notably those involving hapless cockney Alf Knight, the world's most crap criminal, who Steed knowingly sends to his doom for the "greater cause" (it seems only fair when Steed himself is later toughed up and beaten with birches by Petrova's three karate girls, fed LSD through a drip and partially brainwashed). Garforth also devotes a few poignant pages to the plight of meths drinkers on the Embankment, the derelict buildings that serve as their 'home' due for demolition, to make way for a new housing estate where neither they, "men who hadn't asked to be born and didn't want to be kept alive", nor the equally detested rats will be welcome. Just for a moment, you worry that all this electioneering is awakening Steed's social conscience a touch.
"Steed was relieved to be back in London. The industrial Midlands was a depressing place, a memorial to greed and man's inhumanity to man, unrelieved by the monumental breweries and endless stretches of back to back houses where the people bred their social problems. Steed found to his dismay that the place brought out a moralistic streak in him. King's Cross was an easier place to detest with a light heart."
Bit of luck, might be able to cop the other Garforth Avengers novels at the weekend, both of which sound intriguing;
The Laugh Was On Lazarus Emma mixes it by night with Zombies in a famous London cemetery, while Steed is given his comeuppance by three exquisite Oriental dollies who know all the vicious tricks. The fun is fast and furious. And very lethal.
The Passing Of Gloria Munday Sinister goings-on in the corridors of power. Emma and Steed frustrate a take-over, by pirate radio operators, of the British ship of state.
|
|
|
Post by franklinmarsh on Jul 16, 2009 11:44:51 GMT
From the old place -
The Avengers - The Passing Of Gloria Munday - John Garforth - Panther 1967. The Avengers novels are a bit of a mystery. There's a darn good one dating back to Cathy Gale's time, Patrick MacNee had a hand in at least one himself (Dead Duck?) and then there's these John Garforth ones. Like The Man From UNCLE novels I think they just took the TV characters are projected them into 'original' stories. And this so should have been a contender! But ultimately it's just too weird for it's own good. (Nevet thought I'd say that about a book!) Steed is charging along in his Bentley, trying to win the London to Blackpool rally when Kiss Me Deadly! a young lady jumps out in front of his motor 'They're trying to kill me!' Everyone in Britain except Steed would recognise pop superstar Gloria Munday. We're then thrown into a story of pop intrigue - Nick Dickinson - manager - who discovered Gloria at The Beat Cellar in Tottenham. Ellis Dee - Aussie DJ who's pleas to The Kids to keep out of trouble lead to riots. And Horace Horton, managing director of Radufact Electronic Engineering Ltd (REEL) - makers of radar equipment,radios, records - who's a sadistic rubber fetishist. The bonkers plot has the Commotions (pre Lloyd Cole apparently) churning out Walking The Dog and Great Balls of Fire, before Gloria gets up to belt out her latest smash hit 'I Hate Men' before being stabbed to death in a teenage melee. Mrs Peel steps in as the new (slightly more mature) pop sensation (she once auditioned for Andrew Oldham you know) while poor old Steed ends up in the slammer. It's all something to do with subliminal messages in pop records stirring up unrest - especially when radical right-wing reverend Herbert W Sinclair holds a rally in Harringay (sic) Stadium. Completely off the wall but somehow Mr Garforth's writing just can't give it the zest and lunacy it cries out for.
|
|
|
Post by pulphack on Jul 17, 2009 17:16:46 GMT
Harringay (sic) , mr Marsh? Haringey is a borough made up of Wood Green, Tottenham and Harringay, where there used to be a top hole greyhound stadium, and an ice hockey and speedway stadium where my mum and dad courted whilst watching canadian hockey fireball Eddie Blondin get himsefl sinbinned several times in a game.
but to get back on track - the Garforth's are very odd in style - i didn't lilke them first time i read them, but a second read saw me warm more to them. Douglas Enefer's Cathy Gale-era novel is better, and the Peter Leslie/MacNee duo of Dead Duck and Deadline (the former of which i acquired thanks to your good self) are the best. the later US-only ones with Tara King are bloody awful, written by decent hacks who had no knowledge of the show and didn't even seem to have seen a format - she spends all her time calling him 'Major' which was his rank, but never used in the show!
ps - the speedway/hockey stadium is now a mega-Sainsburys...
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Aug 13, 2009 22:14:01 GMT
Same thing happened to Lower Mead, once home to the mighty Wealdstone FC and the Elmsie End which spawned the first version of They Must Be Russians! Yet more Avengers produkt. I've not read it yet, but reviews suggest it's an improvement on the the Ralph Fiennes-Uma Thurman showcase which i gather wasn't much cop? Julie Kaewert - The Avengers (Titan, August 1998) From the Original Screenplay written by Don Macpherson inspired by the cllassic television series The AvengersBlurb: Saving the world in style! The Avengers are back - secret agents John Steed and Emma Peel hit the big screen in a whirlwind mix of robust repartee and dashing derring do, crossing swords with the villianous Sir De Wynter. The weather is no longer in God's hands, the nations of the world are being held to ransom... and one simply can't get a decent cup of tea! Thankfully, those most fashionable, well-mannered and thoroughly British of heroes are back to save the day. Leather catsuit, Savile Row suits, bowler hats, E-type Jags and malevolent would-be world conquerors... it can only be The Avengers. Based on the hit motion picture, The Avengers , this novelisation contains the complete story - from the first meeting of Steed and Mrs Peel (in a steam bath!) to the final climatic confrontation with Sir August (in a force ten gale!).Julie Kaewert is better known as the author of a series of mystery novels centering around Alex Plumtree and his London based publishing company, The Plumtree Press, with titles like Unpublishable, Unsolicited, Untitled, Uncatalogued Unsigned and Unbound.
|
|
|
Post by franklinmarsh on Aug 18, 2009 12:08:44 GMT
I know a lot of people hate it, but I think its great viewing. The multi coloured teddy bears, the ridiculous opening, Jim Broadbent. Any film that features Steed and Mrs Peel in an e-type jag being chased by giant, mechanical killer wasps controlled by Eddie Izzard being driven in a mini by Shaun Ryder is doing something right.
Saw an old Cathy Gale episode at the NFT last night - it was a tribute to Andre Morell who would have been 100 this week had he lived. I'll put something up on the Hammer novelisations thread about Camp On Blood Island which was also shown. Barbara Shelley was there, remarkably chipper considering she suffered a stroke a couple of years back.
|
|
|
Post by killercrab on Aug 18, 2009 14:16:33 GMT
I know a lot of people hate it, but I think its great viewing. >> More a missed opportunity. The opening is pure Avengers - but frankly that's it. Izzard and Connery both fail to be good villians. I did like Emma though but in more capable hands a more fitting tribute to a phenomenally great series should of been the result. I've viewed it twice and left feeling it doesn't quite cut it. Sorry. KC
|
|
|
Post by glodfinger on Aug 18, 2009 19:20:56 GMT
You get the feeling that if the makers had understood a little bit more about THE AVENGERS rather than looking as if they had simply watched a few old tapes, it might have turned out better. Fiennes simply lacks the strange mix of ultimate gentleman and randy sod that Macnee displayed. And on top of this he can't wear a bowler properly. The showdown with Connery looks like Stan Laurel beating up an OAP during Burn's Night celebrations.
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Aug 19, 2009 13:31:32 GMT
Any film that features Steed and Mrs Peel in an e-type jag being chased by giant, mechanical killer wasps controlled by Eddie Izzard being driven in a mini by Shaun Ryder is doing something right. You'd have thought so, wouldn't you, FM? I quite enjoyed the invisible Patrick Macnee as well. However, the film as a whole just didn't work for me either I'm afraid. A few nice set pieces but the plot is flimsy to say the least and the script is little more than a grab bag of knowing one-liners and mostly misfire gags (I'd be interested to know how it reads as a novel). The thing that really sinks it though is the cast. You can usually count on Sean Connery to bring something to any film he's in, but this is perhaps the most lacklustre performance I've ever seen from him. Worse still are Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman - not only is there no spark or chemistry whatsoever between them, they don't even manage much in the way of onscreen presence individually. It'd probably have worked better with Shaun Ryder playing Steed, and Eddie Izzard as Emma Peel. I was actually quite looking forward to finally seeing this, having fished it out of the £1.99 bin in Morrisons recently, and started watching it assuming that all the negative criticism it'd received was probably unfair. It's not - but, yeah, you've got to love those giant, mechanical killer wasps.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Aug 20, 2009 21:34:42 GMT
A few nice set pieces but the plot is flimsy to say the least and the script is little more than a grab bag of knowing one-liners and mostly misfire gags (I'd be interested to know how it reads as a novel). It was all this talk of mechanical wasps that swayed me. Made a start on it last night and perhaps it helps that i've not seen the film 'cause i was fifty pages in and enjoying myself before i knew it. Twenty five chapters and a prologue in 220 pages might at first suggest that Julie Kaewert scrimps on characterisation to keep it belting along, but that ain't the case at all. Steed, Emma (both versions) and Sir August de Wynter are very well drawn and even the minor characters/ cannon fodder get a better deal than seems to be the case in Slimer. Kaewert hits the ground running with a neat scene at in the laboratory beneath Hallucinogen Hall, ancestral home of the de Wynter family, where mad scientist Sir August and his assistant Bailey, a self-styled "ruthless blighter", are re-enacting Frankenstein. The monster they've created: a perfect replica of Emma Peel. The bogus Emma makes her way to Cambridgeshire and the disused airfield beneath which lies the Ministry's secret weather control base. Being 'Emma', she has no difficulty getting past security though the staff are thrown by her surly attitude. It's only when she's past the door marked 'Prospero Program - Authorized Personnel Only' they start asking questions, and by then it's too late - she's begun the auto-destruct countdown! Those members of staff she doesn't kill outright have little chance of evacuating the complex before it blows. And of course, the culprit has been caught on video. Mission accomplished. Next to John Steed, answering the door to a policeman who turns nasty. Steed effortlessly toughs him up, then turns his attentions to the milkman, an old lady walking her spotty dog, three sinister nuns, etc. It's only one of the Ministry's little tests, but there's more serious matters at hand. Steed has been allocated the job of eradicating the guilty party behind the kerfuffle at Cambridge. Dr. Emma Peel. Steed invites Emma to meet him at Boodles Club, a strictly men only establishment (the receptionist informs her that no woman has entered these premises since 1783 before she sends him head over heels down the stairs). She finds Steed in the sauna reading a soggy edition of The Financial Times, naked but for his bowler hat. They're attracted to each other immediately and, more than that, Steed intuitively susses that, however it looks, this young woman had nowt to do with the sabotage of Project Prospero. He decides there and then that he's not going to kill her and makes it his mission to clear her name. Have to leave it there for a few days at least as my luck must be in because i turned up something seriously seventies NEL earlier (it's been AGES), and once i've finished hugging myself, it will take precedence over all the other junk i have on the go. But Avengers is chugging along fine.
|
|
|
Post by Craig Herbertson on Aug 21, 2009 4:46:38 GMT
Sounds brilliant dem. All the necessary elements. If I could manufacture Emma Peels it wouldn't be for blowing them up though....
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 2, 2010 16:30:25 GMT
Chris Bentley - The Avengers On Location (Reynolds & Hearn, 2007) Blurb THE AVENGERS inhabited an extraordinary landscape with only a tenuous connection to the realities of 60s and 70s England - a landscape filled with mad scientists, killer robots, giant rats and diabolical master minds. Filmed in a variety of locations in England, France and Canada, many of the settings are easily accessible and remain virtually unchanged decades later. The Avengers on Location is an essential guide to the locations seen in the filmed episodes of THE AVENGERS and THE NEW AVENGERS produced by Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens between 1964 and 1977, a gazetteer of over 500 strangely familiar stately homes, pubs, hotels, thatched cottages, hedge-lined country roads and typically English villages.
Illustrated with over 600 photographs, each entry details the histories of the key locations, how to find them and what changes have taken place over the years since their television appearances.
Chris Bentley is a freelance writer and designer whose previous works include The Complete Gerry Anderson, The Complete Book of Gerry Anderson's UFO and The Complete Book of Thunderbirds. He is also one of the co-organisers of The Avengers Dead Man's Treasure Hunt, the world's only annual AVENGERS fan event.
another Charity Shop find - same place as the video and Dave Rogers' The Ultimate Avengers showed up; somebody around here must have been really upset by the Ralph Fiennes-Uma Thurman remake. Just the briefest flick through and have already spotted our old friend Loughville from The Monster Club (Aldenham Park, Elstree, Hertfordshire) and Tykes Water Lake Bridge (which Sam and Luna flee across to escape from the ghoulies). The bridge is familiar from several sixties and seventies horror movies including Taste The Blood Of Dracula, Dracula AD 1972, Fear In The Night, Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors and The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Some excellent publicity stills too, including one i've not seen before of Emma Peel tied to a model railway track; might scan that one up later.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jul 25, 2011 15:05:46 GMT
wrote off much of the weekend de-cluttering my hard drive of several hours worth of dubious film footage acquired from a variety of disreputable sources, shoved the lot onto DVD's and settled down to a mini film fest! As much as it was a rare treat to finally catch up on odd episodes of Hammer House Of Horror ( The House That Bled To Death is a stormer!), The Persuaders, Midsomer Murders and On The Buses, it's the bizarre exploits of John Steed and Emma Peel that threaten to become my latest minor obsession as, with the help of Dave Rogers' excellent The Ultimate Avengers (Boxtree, 1995), i've been hunting down the episodes most likely to feature horror/ 'supernatural' content, and there seem to have been quite a few. i've lined up Castle De'ath and Murdersville for tonight's late night viewing on the promise of a death in the iron maiden and a trial by ducking stool respectively, but they will have to go some to equal Brian Clemens' Epic from season 5, first broadcast, appropriately enough, on April fools day, 1967. Emma is kidnapped on her way to the Plaza cinema and driven to the supposedly disused Z. Z. Schnerk studios where the mad director (Kenneth J. Warren) has hit upon a sure fire means of satisfying the art house crowd - ultra-camp snuff movies. Our heroine is to star alongside fallen screen idols Stewart Kirby (Peter Wyndgarde at the pinnacle of his powers) and Damita Syn (Isa Miranda) in The Destruction Of Emma Peel! The idea is vaguely reminiscent of John Burke's A Comedy Of Terrors ( The 9th Pan Book Of Horror Stories, 1968) and includes a splendid Pit & The Pendulum sequence in a very mod torture chamber which sees Emma bound to a table and destined for death by circular saw while Wyngarde - now playing a Dracula/ Frankenstein composite mad doctor - and his disfigured bride gloat over her impending doom. It's almost a disappointment when Steed saves the day!
|
|