The Significant Props
of Season 5 (1967-8)

The Avengers
Page 1

A television series need decent props. Except maybe Doctor Who. It's when these props really add something to a story that true suspension of disbelief can occur. I'm not saying that has ever really happened with an Avengers episode, but they've come close a few times. A truly immersive experience is an extraordinary feat for a television show, but good props are the fulcrum for such an action; not necessarily blockbuster special effects, but attention to detail. Here's our picks for the episode-defining props of the colour Emma Peel shows.

From Venus With Love

Car
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

The outstanding prop of the episode is the raw-metal finished Ford GT40 sport scar with the laser mounted in the forward storage compartment. Mistaken for a low-flying UFO because of its shiny mirror finish, it leads Mrs Peel a merry dance, and is only finally uncovered when inactive. The GT40 was the fastest road car of the time, and stood a mere 40 inches in height from road level - that's 1.16 metres for our metric readers. The laser is convincingly ominous, even though we never see it in action.

Primble's laser
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

A contraption straight out of Flash Gordon, owing more to Hollywood B-grade flicks than ophthalmic surgery techniques. Nevertheless, it's certainly convincing and terrifying enough when waved in the direction of the captured Mrs Peel.

Book
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

photographs ©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Venus, Our Sister Planet is the book, the cover emblazoned with a shadowy photograph of said planet. A photograph strangely like those found by Steed in a spool attached to one of the telescopes. Well, not so strange, they were supposed to be looking at Venus. Here, Steed and Primble discuss the similarity between the images.

Eye charts/Primble's office
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

From the sublime to the ridiculous, Primble's office has it all.

The absurd eye chart used for Steed's test - an array of hats rather than letters to test the patient's eyes. I'm sure most people would fail that test these days, it is no longer a hat-wearing world.

Chair
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

A reclining couch, handily fitted with leather straps for tying up the delectable Mrs Peel, surrounded by regulation eye charts, some of which are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the laser.

BVS office
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

From this futuristic and somewhat foreboding office, Venus Browne runs the British Venusian Society. Seemingly of malicious intent, she and Crawford are the episode's red herrings.

Modernist painting
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

A well travelled piece, this one. It turns up here, getting somewhat obliterated by Primble's laser, and turns up again, many episodes later, as a prop lying around backstage in Epic. Actually, that's hardly surprising, Epic is the prop-spotters paradise - it's basically showing the general public the entirety of the sound stage The Avengers was recorded on.
Not only that, but both copies of it - with and without the silhouette - turn up two episodes of The Saint ("A Portrait of Brenda" and "The Power Artist"). The non-silhouette version reappears in an episode of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).

Other artifacts
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

The admirable Lord Mansford didn't just appreciate dodgy modern art, and here's the proof. A whole shelf groaning under the weight of a weird jumble of tacky brass figurines and assorted knick knacks. Money can't buy a fine appreciation of art, even if it can buy the actual pieces. The good Lord proves not to be the most discerning of art lovers.

Melford's safe
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Outside this imposing Everlast Safe, Mrs Peel waited until the clock struck three, while inside Lord Mansford was distracted from his art appreciation by suddenly being struck dead. Thus the wheel of fate turns once more...

Large observatory
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

The scene of Sir Frederick Hadley's demise, and what a scene! Yes folks, a real observatory is being used here. Enormous star-gazing telescope, astrological charts, domed canopy, this one has the lot.

Whitehead's Study
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Here exited Brigadier Whitehead, white-headed. A sudden bolt from Primble's laser left him speechless, and saved the world from his extremely torturous war memoirs.

Cosgrove's observatory
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

The scene of Cosgrove's demise in the episode intro, this is where people drink their beer warm. Steed and Mrs Peel search the room for clues, but there's not a lot to work with. The observatory is later the scene of Steed's demise, or rather, the demise of...

Wax dummy of Steed
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Wax dummy of Steed ©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Steed thwarts the dastardly villains by setting up a wax dummy of himself gazing skyward the evening he's on duty for the BVS. The plan works; the dummy is melted and Primble reveals his hand.

White bowler
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

A crowning moment to the episode - Steed's trusty bowler bleached white by the insidious action of the evil doctor's laser beam.

Graveyard
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Well, okay, this set isn't so great. Joseph has referred elsewhere to the styrofoam head stones, but what other way to represent the laser burning through granite? I'm sure the sexton of any real graveyard would be most upset if a film crew bored holes through the stones in his yard for a television show.

Mrs Peel's flat
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Gone is the bizarre eye on the front door, and altogether changed is the interior. Mrs Peel has moved out of the flat in Primrose Hill which she'd occupied during 1965 and 1966, but may still be somewhere in the district.

©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Steed's flat
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

(As a darkroom). The blinds are down, the curtains closed. We can barely see Steed as he labours under a red safe light, developing the venus shots. We'll have to wait until the next episode before we can really see his flat.

invitation to adventure
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Skewered upon the end of Steed's trusty umbrella (obviously the one with a sword inside it, given his fencing stance), Steed's first summons for Mrs Peel in the year 1967 sets the style for the episodes to come. The first sixteen of them anyway.

The Fear Merchants

BEB stationery
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

A flurry of stationery supporting the existence of the wholly untoward Business Efficiency Bureau - business cards, flyers, brochures, document folders for each of their clients... and victims. All emblazoned with a suitably progressive italic sans serif logo, and a pleasing interlocked lines motif.

BEB office
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

The BEB offices are a symphony - or cacophony - of glittering chrome, modular walls and black furniture. Very cold and alienating, and the den of the villainous Pemberton, Voss and Gilbert.

Like the wrapping on a late nineties industrial funk CD, the decoration of the Business Efficiency Bureau foyer is super modern. More so than most Sixties design - Marshall McLuhan should have looked to this as the message in the medium. Writ large upon the walls are slogans such as "Analysis requires motivation", "Have you assessed your potential demand?", "Motivation is the root of decision" and "Assessment requires analysis".


©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

lie-detector readouts
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Earthquake readings, or the tremor in the knees caused by the appearance of Patrick Macnee? you be the judge. Still, Mrs Peel made a similar impact to the read-outs, and I'm not surprised. Note too, that they used semi-opaque paper to get the full effect. Probably a seismograph rather than an actual lie detector, if you ask me.

Mrs Peel's sculpture
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

The tidy apartment of Mrs Emma Peel is greatly disrupted in this episode when she begins work on a monumental concrete sculpture in that alienating Sixties modernist style which dated so very quickly. So fast in fact, that it was gone by the end of the episode after next.

squalid gymnasium
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

There's not many like this these days, and no wonder.
Dirty, poorly-equipped, obviously uninsulated and draughty; I haven't seen a tin-shed gym in over 20 years, I think everyone decided they were just too unhealthy. Unless you're a boxer, in which case you don't know any better anyway.

dingy hospital
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

There's not many like this these days, and no wonder.
Dirty, poorly-equipped, obviously uninsulated and draughty; oh wait a minute, that's the gym. Still, much the same could probably be said about this place. Look at that ugly institutional paint scheme, and the uncomfortable chairs in the waiting area.
Still, they probably had enough beds for the patients back then...

black feather
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Only clue to the cause of Gordon White's death is this feather left behind. 'Tis a pity it changes shape and size between the Fox, White & Crawley offices and Mrs Peel's flat, I guess the props department lost the original and nobody expect, thirty years later, someone would be making light of it.

automatic potter
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

The not very useful invention of the quirky Jeremy Raven, an automatic pottery-making machine that churns out lumps of misshapen clay (picture coming soon). Sounds like a primary school art class to me. It probably doesn't work because it's just an old bathroom cabinet put on top of a couple of dials, but who cares? Jeremy does. Until he gets it working, Jeremy continues to throw away and smash quite reasonable, if mundane, ceramics, like those pictured at the right.

invitation to adventure
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Hidden inside a sadly empty box of chocolates (right), Steed's summons to Mrs Peel leaves her a little crestfallen, and fearful of chocolate boxes - in case they too might be empty.

champagne
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

What better way to end an episode? Proving herself not afraid of chocolates, only empty boxes, Mrs Peel discovers Steed's greatest fear - that they might have run out of champagne. She is quick to calm him after the initial taunt, however.

Escape In Time

morgue
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Clyde Paxton exits in mysterious fashion, shot with a Seventeenth Century hunting pistol, and the Avengers are summoned to the Ministry morgue to examine the body. Realistically dismal, the rasping metal body lockers and grimy tiled walls make a convincing morgue.

message on note pad
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Tubby Vincent also exits in unusual fashion, but he's handed a clue to our heroes - the wayward Colonel Josino is bound for England, and expected in the perplexing Mackiedockie Court at 12:30pm. Better bring a crocodile with you!

Article on Josino
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Just who is this Colonel Josino? According to this magazine article, he's a South American dictator who's absconded with the contents of his (former) country's treasury. But why are the Avengers relying on a magazine? Surely there's an official file on this villain!

Mackiedockie Court
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

Perhaps the highlight of the episode - or highlights, as we experience it three times - are the machinations of body-swapping conducted in the maze of little alley ways, all alike, that make up Mackiedockie Court. Home to a bewildering array of characters; Sweeney the barber, Parker with his toy stall, Anjali in the Far Eastern Emporium, plus Mitchell, Vesta and assorted nuns confusing the trail. The Daily Mail headline "Where is Blake?" refers to escapee double agent George Blake, exposed by British Intelligence in 1962 and imprisoned, only to escape in 1966 and end up back in the Eastern Bloc; he died in 1994. Quite a reasonable headline when the episode is about escape routes.

Proving herself quite the seamstress - Steed had no idea, their relationship hasn't exactly been domestic - by making a stuffed toy for Steed to take with him to Mackiedockie Court. Having seen the exchange of Josino's crocodile with a kangaroo, she makes a kangaroo for Steed, and off they go. There's quite a profusion of stuffed animals on Parker's stall, and throughout the episode.

After not seeing Steed's abode at all for the first few episodes, we discover that it too has been refurbished. Steed now lives in a loft apartment which is decorated to resemble an English gentlemen's club. A reproduction of "The Charge of the Light Brigade", militaria, a tuba, wood panelling and bookshelves, and a monumental fireplace and mantelpiece.

Really, everything in Anjali's emporium ought to be shown here, but she makes particular reference to Ganesha, and another statue of this god is sitting in front of the time machine controls (see 1790, below), as well as swinging over the gate to Thyssen's house. Bit of a giveaway really...

The psychedelic interior - time travel by confusion and hypnosis - and the deliberately silly controls - an old slot machine - make the time machine a humourous high point of the episode; especially when Steed pulls the cables and it spins round to a jackpot and expels an antique coin.

Part of Thyssen's subterfuge relies on the varying numbers of death masks of his ancestors - the less there are, the further back in history you are. These, along with the varying décor (below), make for suspension of disbelief on the part of the characters, but never the viewers - although we can believe that the characters believe. Or something.

©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

For each era a different room, made to look like the first. If only anyone other than Steed could ever get those blasted doors open, they would have been onto the plot...
Quite a nice way of representing the change of fashion and decoration through several centuries of English history.

1570	1680	1790	1967

And where is Colonel Josino now? Matthew Thyssen would have Steebelieveve him sent back in time to Derby Day at Ascot, 1904. but we know better, don't we children? Yes, he's dead and mouldering in a box, back in 1570.

We're on the road to nowhere - until Steed and Clapham happen upon the Yule Tide Turkey Farm, and then Vesta hurtles past in a very unsubtle manner. Thyssen's house proves to be just over the hill, and the entry hall appears unguarded. Steed to the rescue once more!

Steed has a variety of umbrellas with different gadget inside them - compasses, swords, tape recorders, radios, you name it. This one appears to conveniently contain a tranquilising gas, dispensing of Thyssen's goon Sweeney.

Mrs Peel is incarcerated in some wooden stocks before a blazing fire, and will shortly undergo horrendous torture from a hot poker - but why doesn't she just slip her feet from the stocks? They're nowhere near tight enough to hold her should she wish to escape.

Invitation to a Hunt Ball
Which becomes an invitation to adventure. That man Steed's been tampering with the mail again...

Another sputtering departure from an episode, by way of an antique Unic 12hp taxi which doesn't want to co-operate with Steed's cranking of the engine. Finally under way with a besooted Steed in the cab, and Mrs Peel driving.

The Props

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The Significant Props of Season 5 (1967-8)

The Avengers Page 1

The Significant Props
of Season 5 (1967-8)

The Avengers
Page 1