Kim Mills

[darren]

Now when it comes to the names of great Avengers directors, Kim Mills' name isn't one you are likely to see.

Relating to something else, I had a look on his imdb page and see that he died in 2006. I'm not a fan of his Avengers work but his passing doesn't deserve to go unnoticed. From shaky beginnings in season 2, you can really see him developing a style and competency in season 3. He creates a wonderfully tense moment in Death a la Carte with Steed on the side of the hotel. He directed the final videotape episode, Lobster Quadrille.

After the Avengers he did some really well regarded things like Public Eye (created by Roger Marshall), which he produced as well, Armchair Theatre/Thriller and The Gentle Touch.

[Rodney]

He was one of my father's closest friends and often worked with him: on The Avengers, Public Eye and The Gentle Touch, among others. As a young man he had a brain heamorrage which affected his memory. He would often ring my father up and then forgot who he had rung and why! This didn't prevent him from being a talented director and producer. Unfortunately, in later life he had a long term mystery illness which was probably related to his earlier illness (which went undiagnosed for years). He was a great fan of Blackman but not Macnee and when asked to contribute to Macnee's autobiography he said that the success was down to Honor rather than Patrick. Not surprisingly his comments did not appear in the book! A man with a great sense of humour.

[mousemeat]

He was one of my father's closest friends and often worked with him: on The Avengers, Public Eye and The Gentle Touch, among others. As a young man he had a brain heamorrage which affected his memory. He would often ring my father up and then forgot who he had rung and why! This didn't prevent him from being a talented director and producer. Unfortunately, in later life he had a long term mystery illness which was probably related to his earlier illness (which went undiagnosed for years). He was a great fan of Blackman but not Macnee and when asked to contribute to Macnee's autobiography he said that the success was down to Honor rather than Patrick. Not surprisingly his comments did not appear in the book! A man with a great sense of humour.

Interesting insight on one of the many directors of the show..

True, he had a style.....I found Rodney's comments about him,
to be interesting..especially over his choice of Honor over Patrick
concerning the success of the show...and his problems with his short
term memory.....

[Rodney]

In the Blackman era Macnee was often the centre of amusement for the production team. He was infamously accident prone and if a knob came off a door or a set wobbled or collapsed, Patrick was usually the perpetrator. However, as he acknowledged, working with Blackman improved his acting ability and with Rigg his comic timing was honed. By the time Rigg left the show he was a far better actor than the trench coated investigator of Season 1.

[Allard]

In the Blackman era Macnee was often the centre of amusement for the production team. He was infamously accident prone and if a knob came off a door or a set wobbled or collapsed, Patrick was usually the perpetrator. However, as he acknowledged, working with Blackman improved his acting ability and with Rigg his comic timing was honed. By the time Rigg left the show he was a far better actor than the trench coated investigator of Season 1.

That's wonderful to read. And concurs with what Diana said about him, having to little faith in himself. I quite love the overly modest Englishman we also see in Steed.

[Timeless A-Peel]

In the Blackman era Macnee was often the centre of amusement for the production team. He was infamously accident prone and if a knob came off a door or a set wobbled or collapsed, Patrick was usually the perpetrator. However, as he acknowledged, working with Blackman improved his acting ability and with Rigg his comic timing was honed. By the time Rigg left the show he was a far better actor than the trench coated investigator of Season 1.

It's times like this that I wish there was the equivalent of the "blooper reel" back in the sixties, although the Blackman era does capture a fair share of gaffes. Do you know, Rodney, what became of footage from the filmed years in which mistakes were made? Was it automatically discarded, or was it retained in some sort of archive? And aside from special cases like the Bryce episodes, how common was it for an episode to run over time, and what became of the scenes that were deleted? Was it usually timed fairly well, or is there a lot of unused footage hanging about?

[Artanis]

Yes, I wish we had some blooper reels too. They would give us a behind the scenes look at how the episodes were made and are just fun to watch.

[mousemeat]

Yes, I wish we had some blooper reels too. They would give us a behind the scenes look at how the episodes were made and are just fun to watch.

How true....but sadly, the stuff shot on video tape, and film was probably tossed out..or in the case of video tape, bunk erased & re used.

film as well as tape, does not age very well, especially if not kept
in the proper vault...

loss to the mists of time...no doubt...but if some could turn up, how priceless..that would be...maybe a private collector has some ?

[darren]

He was one of my father's closest friends and often worked with him: on The Avengers, Public Eye and The Gentle Touch, among others. As a young man he had a brain heamorrage which affected his memory. He would often ring my father up and then forgot who he had rung and why! This didn't prevent him from being a talented director and producer. Unfortunately, in later life he had a long term mystery illness which was probably related to his earlier illness (which went undiagnosed for years). He was a great fan of Blackman but not Macnee and when asked to contribute to Macnee's autobiography he said that the success was down to Honor rather than Patrick. Not surprisingly his comments did not appear in the book! A man with a great sense of humour.

Thank you for sharing that, Rodney. It's always nice to hear things about the cast and crew as it stops them just being names on the credits.

[Frankymole]

Yes, I wish we had some blooper reels too. They would give us a behind the scenes look at how the episodes were made and are just fun to watch.

How true....but sadly, the stuff shot on video tape, and film was probably tossed out..or in the case of video tape, bunk erased & re used.

film as well as tape, does not age very well, especially if not kept
in the proper vault...

loss to the mists of time...no doubt...but if some could turn up, how priceless..that would be...maybe a private collector has some ?

There is some newsreel footage (in colour) showing behind-the-scenes of filming the tag scenes at Beaulieu, so there may be some other snippets out and about...