3.21 - Mandrake

[anti-clockwise]

Bill Bain was a great director - not as obviously stylish as Hammond or Leaver but he made his episodes look striking and solid. Excellent casting with John Le Mesurier, Philip Locke and Madge Ryan and well everyone.

It's a shame that Mandrake didn't get the series 5B remake but could they have improved on it. Robert Day who handled £50,000 Breakfast wasn't as great a director as Bill Bain - I suppose they went with the Great Dane remake as it was a more contained episode with mostly a single location that was easier to replicate than the ones needed for Mandrake.

Good points Darren. It would have been a better remake then 50K Breakfast. Too bad they did not modify scenes if at all possible.

[Rodders]

What made 50K interesting was the use of a female mastermind, a rarity in the series.
Mandrake makes great use of gallows humour and death imagery which is such a powerful leitmotif in the show.

[dissolute]

I think Mandrake is underrated by most viewers. Sure, it's studio-bound and the plot is fairly straightforward, but the standard of the players is very high.
Macombie vascillates between obsequious plotter and scared medical practitioner. Le Mesurier at his best. Philip Locke is his usual goggling, evil self (although in one scene he keeps staring at the secondary camera, expecting the vision to switch to it - I assume the director changed the camera script at the last minute without informing the actors).

A delightful cliffhanger and red herring rolled into one with the vicar and his water pistol - he's very menacing and convincing.

The episode was justly famous in its day for being the one where Honor Blackman knocked out Jackie Pallo on-set in the graveyard fight scene.
We don't see it happen, as it was during rehearsal that she forgot to feint and accidentally kicked him in the head, whereupon he hit his head on the concrete floor of the studio and was out cold for four minutes, during which Honor sat by him, in tears.

[Avengerholic]

I love it, I only watched it again yesterday. It's a great episode, everything about it is utter perfection, the thunderstorm at the cemetery, the sets, the acting, Honor is on top form and of course there's that famous fight sequence in the graveyard. 10/10

[Ian Wegg]

This was the only episode I had seen before, when it was shown at the 50th event at Chichester, so I was looking forward to it being shown on True Entertainment. I wasn't disappointed, a good plot that I could follow, an extensive set and some wonderful performances.

9/10

[Rhonda]

9 for me. A hugely enjoyable mix of action indoor and out with a mysterious link to nature captivates the viewer throughout.

[Allard]

One of THE classic Cathy Gale episodes. Shows what the Avengers can do with a basic but strong simple idea for a plot.

Its really very much a normal crime drama, strong in atmosphere. Despite the "primitive technology" the changes in the cemetery being bathed in rain or sunshine work remarkably well.

The odious villain and the corrupted doctor one almost feels sorry for. Steeds flirting with Annette Andre and interaction with Cathy. Eccentric vicar, Honor Blackman's fight scene: The Avengers just gives it an edge. An episode that proves it doesn't need spy-fi or over the top weirdness. Its it's stylishness and tongue in cheek.

[mousemeat]

Agree. Anything with Roger Marshall is gold.

exactly...when Mr. Marshall was on, top his game, the scripts were TOP NOTCH.. etc

even when they fell short, They were still better than many other writers scripts, in my opinion...

[Frankymole]

Although I gave this a 10/10 marking originally, rewatching it tonight revealed some technical glitches like the waste bin going flying when John Le Mesurier tried to break the poison bottle on the side of it. But perhaps this is not surprising with such a complicated episode - the direction is ambitious, and I was surprised to see it was by Bill Bain not Don Leaver or Peter Hammond, the multilevel sets felt more like something from the director of The Golden Eggs or another series 2 episode.

The dialogue is delicious (George Benson as the vicar, and Annette André as Judy, have some particularly joyous lines - I do hope she enjoyed her date with Steed the following Monday), and the story is uncomplicated but interesting; a harder trick to pull off than it seems. Roger Marshall is firing on all cylinders now.

So the biggest minus mark seems to be the miscasting of Madge Ryan as some gadabout ex-showgirl, supposedly "age 43 but looks a lot younger" (no she doesn't) and who dumps Hopkins who seems physically besotted with her according to the script. I can see her appeal (now that I'm nearly the stated age of her murdered husband!), but I'm not sure someone as supposedly flash as our Roy Hopkins would! He could only be in it for her money, but he seems genuinely attracted to her (hence ogling her knee!).

It also makes no sense that the villains would try to face it out at the climax when we are told just before that a body has to spend a couple of months in arsenic-rich soil to be safe from post-mortem detection of poisoning - Mr Turner has only just been buried, so even if he were in the coffin it would be a straightforward process to exhume him and check.

Nevertheless, this is top-notch stuff, very entertaining and the set design is some of the best there has ever been.