Posted on 10/13/2005 10:10:20 AM PDT by pissant
Debonair John Steed - bowler hat, red carnation - and his sidekick, Emma Peel, were The Avengers, whose camp, cool adventures helped define Sixties television. But how many viewers have stopped to ask exactly what was being avenged? The long-forgotten answer will be revealed later this year thanks to the rediscovery of The Avengers' first-ever episode, which was believed to have been lost for good.
Entitled Hot Snow, it was broadcast live by ITV in 1961 in an era when there was little technology - or appetite - to record shows for posterity.
But after years of painstaking research, the first 20 minutes of the hour-long drama have been found in the archives of the University of California, Los Angeles, and are to be screened in public for the first time in more than four decades.
Anyone expecting silver-tongued quips from Steed, alias Patrick Macnee, as he pours champagne for a leather-clad female associate, will be in for a surprise.
The chief protagonist of the first series of The Avengers was Dr David Keel, played by Ian Hendry, who in the rediscovered first reel is seen becoming mixed up with drug runners.
He is preparing to buy a ring for his fiancee, played by Catherine Woodville (who was later to marry Macnee in real life), when she is gunned down in a drive-by shooting. It is her murder which turns Keel into an 'Avenger'. Steed, an enigmatic government agent yet to find his urbane persona, does not appear until the second reel of Hot Snow, which is still missing.
He continued to play second fiddle to Keel during the first series, but when Hendry quit for a movie career, Macnee took over and was joined by Honor Blackman as the ultimate modern woman, Dr Cathy Gale.
His next major foil was Diana Rigg, as Emma Peel, whose platonic chemistry with Steed proved endlessly intriguing. The series ended in 1969.
The first reel of Hot Snow is believed to have survived because it was syndicated to Canadian television. It is to be shown in December at the National Film Theatre on London's South Bank as part of its Missing Believed Wiped programme, dedicated this year to ITV to celebrate the broadcaster's 50th anniversary.
Dick Fiddy, co-ordinator of Missing Believed Wiped, said: 'Any find from early television is interesting as a social document. The Avengers has a cult status but it started as a thick-eared drama with none of the flash or style we associate with it.
'The Steed character is very different: shadowy and manipulative. In this episode you find out why they are called The Avengers - the raison d'etre of the entire series. It is the Hitchcockian idea of taking an innocent man, Keel, and putting him in a dangerous situation.'
Leonard White, 88, who co-created The Avengers and produced the first 40 episodes, said he was excited by the find.
'It shows what the series was like in the early days compared with the more famous later days. Most people only know The Avengers with Diana Rigg, but this is quite a different thing - just two men.'
Very true!!! LOL
I thank you kind sir. I never tire of seeing Emma!
Dude, if I had it..I'd have posted it already...(g)
Dude, if I had it..I'd have posted it already...(g)
Was there more than one? I remember Tara - fondly - but don't recall any others.
In my next life, I want to come back as Dianna Rigg. Tall, funny and great eyes.
Patrick was groovy. I remember one time, after clobbering a bad guy, he looked inside the guy's jacket to see who his tailor was.
I really didn't need to know that! Congrats though!
But how about Honey West?
I would try and help, but I am at work and if I do a search on Diana Riggs and leather and riding crop I expect I would be hearing from the IS Department in very short order.
Honey West was before my time I think. I never got to see any of that in reruns either.
Think sharp blonde in black figure-hugging tights.
I just went to a website. Wow she filled out her sweater.
Ping-a-ling
Hey, he was great in Thunder in Paradise (which sadly is no longer Hulk Hogan's highest rated TV series).
Ok, we probably did get the better of this deal.
BTW, have you read his autobiography?
Talk about a bizarre childhood! (I need to research a bit to remember, but it was weird).
When I chose this nickname, I had no idea how much reaction it would get. Especially when I used to chat on mIRC, I was bombarded by "Steeds".
I alternately use MAppeal = Male Appeal, which is the derivation of the name Emma Peel.
Cheers to the 60s.
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