1.19 - Toy Trap

[Allard]

LOST EPISODE - episode summary from The Avengers Dissolute website:

Dr Keel is puzzled by the disappearance of shop-girls at a department store. Someone is pressurising the young ladies into prostitution. Bunty, Keel's friend, agrees to trap the culprit, so that her friend May can come out of hiding. The girls' landlady, Mrs McCabe, reveals her double-life allowing Steed to close her house of ill repute.

[Frankymole]

This is quite sordid stuff, more suited to a "The Sweeney" or "Z-Cars" type vice ring story than even the supposedly gritty series 1 "Avengers". But it's tremendously well done. The diabolical mastermind is quite grotesque (going by the Tele-Snaps) so it does have a pseudo-fantasy element of sorts.

The Keel and Steed dynamic is developed brilliantly in the final scenes. If Hendry had a hand in the scripted dialogue, which by all accounts he (and Macnee) normally did, then he deserves kudos for writing some splendid taut and economic dramatic speech, not a word wasted. It was also very amusing having Steed sample Keel's cooking and comment on his housekeeping skills.

Sally Smith is so cute as Bunty it hurts. Strange that this was a couple of years before The Human Jungle in which she was a regular. Quite an able character; most of Steed's female helpers in this season make Venus Smith look even more useless than she already appears to be.

The Big Finish disk has a rather good documentary about the making of the new audio(s).

[mousemeat]

This is quite sordid stuff, more suited to a "The Sweeney" or "Z-Cars" type vice ring story than even the supposedly gritty series 1 "Avengers". But it's tremendously well done. The diabolical mastermind is quite grotesque (going by the Tele-Snaps) so it does have a pseudo-fantasy element of sorts.

The Keel and Steed dynamic is developed brilliantly in the final scenes. If Hendry had a hand in the scripted dialogue, which by all accounts he (and Macnee) normally did, then he deserves kudos for writing some splendid taut and economic dramatic speech, not a word wasted. It was also very amusing having Steed sample Keel's cooking and comment on his housekeeping skills.

Sally Smith is so cute as Bunty it hurts. Strange that this was a couple of years before The Human Jungle in which she was a regular. Quite an able character; most of Steed's female helpers in this season make Venus Smith look even more useless than she already appears to be.

The Big Finish disk has a rather good documentary about the making of the new audio(s).

this was a great recap and opinion....which makes me want to track down the big finish disk...and absorb the info, etc

[Frankymole]

You can get them just as downloads if you prefer. When I got the CDs they also gave me a free pass to download the audio files too.

[dissolute]

Downloads for me, getting Big Finish to post CDs overseas costs more than the CDs themselves!

[Frankymole]

Reminds me of when I got the five "The Saint" DVD box sets from Australia. As well as taking forever, they then got slapped with exorbitant import charges from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs... and also they made me go and collect them from a parcel warehouse in the middle of a secure industrial complex which required all sorts of clearance to get in. It was like Fort Knox! I'd like to say never again but the Aussie "Umbrella" sets often had better extras when it came to ITC shows (see also Danger Man, Man in a Suitcase, Return of the Saint, The Prisoner, UFO, Sapphire and Steel etc).

[mousemeat]

Reminds me of when I got the five "The Saint" DVD box sets from Australia. As well as taking forever, they then got slapped with exorbitant import charges from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs... and also they made me go and collect them from a parcel warehouse in the middle of a secure industrial complex which required all sorts of clearance to get in. It was like Fort Knox! I'd like to say never again but the Aussie "Umbrella" sets often had better extras when it came to ITC shows (see also Danger Man, Man in a Suitcase, Return of the Saint, The Prisoner, UFO, Sapphire and Steel etc).

wow...I bet the 'tax' was steep...lucky, i haven't found that to be a major issue when purchasing imported dvd's / cd's to the States..biggest cost is postal..but now days you can go DHL, FEDEX, AMAZON, ETC...

[dissolute]

I like the little misdirection at the beginning of Toy Trap where there's a close-up of a bowler hat and umbrella and the camera then pulls out to reveal it's the store manager Henry Burge rather than Steed.

I had suspected for a while the bowler and umbrella were well established by this point despite the claims of some people that it didn't happen until later - too fixated on the trench coat photo shoot from before filming even started, I guess.
It would also explain all the stuff in Verner's original "Double Danger" script about Steed using his umbrella. There's a publicity still from "Double Danger" that has Steed wearing his bowler and another with a trilby and his trusty cane-handled umbrella.

[Frankymole]

Yes, the bowler was definitely well-established before episode 17 (Death on the Slipway), since Steed is even wearing it when asleep, exhausted, on Keel's surgery's couch!

Due to lack of Tele-Snaps before episode 14 it's hard to tell, Steed was often undercover so wore different outfits anyway - people are probably judging too much by the early photo-shoot as you say, since that is all over the titles of all 26 episodes it becomes ingrained as an image. Dr Keel also had a nice overcoat and didn't always wear the lightweight mackintosh but that image sticks too.

[dissolute]

Reading scripts again, Peter Hammond's camera script for Brought to Book has a LOT of stage directions for Steed's umbrella although his hat is never mentioned. The directions also mention a cigarette holder so he's quite posh is description.

Given how well turned out he is in that still of him playing pool with Mason, it would not surprise me if the bowler had already turned up in the second episode - he has a gold lighter, French cuffs with cuff-links, an expensive wristwatch and diamond tie-pin.

There's also a recurring motif of Inspector Wilson appearing in mirrors before being fully revealed, a very trademark Hammond touch.

I notice that in "Ashes of Roses" he offers Denise a cigarette from his cigarette case too, and he's frequently described throughout series 1 as driving a Rolls-Royce.


Steed in shirtsleeves, playing pool with Mason, who is out of focus behind him

This is in Ashes of Roses:

THEY WALK TOWARDS THE DOOR. SHE
CAN SEE THE CAR - THE EXPRESSION
ON HER FACE SHOWS JUST HOW
LUXURIOUS IT IS. SHE TURNS TO
HIM: HER EYES TAKE IN HIS
EXPENSIVE APPEARANCE - THE GOLD
LIGHTER, CIGARETTE CASE. SHE
SMILES SLOWLY.

Add to that, Steed is wearing a bowler in "Double Danger" and no-one remarks on it at all.