The Avengers International Fan Forum

Watching a few clips from The House That Jack Built recently & it seem to me that the shows creators loved using candles as props. While I haven't watched each and every episode to do a complete analysis has anyone noticed that candles are a very common fixture in quite a few episodes particularly with Dame Diana? Or am I just blowing smoke?

My other interest has to do with which "other" country the actors acknowledged most often? Those German labelled 78 rpm records & subsequent audio of same in The House That Jack Built got me to thinking was it Germany or France (champagne does not count LOL) that received the most mentions in one way or another from the cast during the run of the series?

There were a lot more candles in the original of that episode, "Don't Look Behind You", plus they're in The Superlative Seven in the same house.
Candles add a quick injection of gothic menace so it's an obvious prop to go for.

Other candle episodes off the top of my head, I'm sure there are many more!:

A Change of Bait (sort of), Mission to Montreal, Warlock, The Secrets Broker (I think..), The Murder Market, Castle De'ath, Too Many Christmas Trees, A Touch of Brimstone, A Sense of History, Game (I think...)

Re your other country question, there's:

(Pascala): Crescent Moon [Somewhere in Central America or the Carribbean]
(Radeck): Girl on the Trapeze [Russia]
USA: Diamond Cut Diamond
Switzerland: One for the Mortuary
Norway: The Springers
(Tenebra): The Yellow Needle [Somewhere in Central Africa]
(Shanpore): Kill the King [Thailand?]
Mexico, France: The Fat Distant Dead
Argentina, Germany: Dead of Winter
Canada: Mission to Montreal
Ireland: Dead on Course
France: Propellant 23, The Removal Men
(Balkan State): The Decapod
... etc

NB Those in parentheses are fictitious countries.

As it was the Cold War, the Soviet Bloc gets tons of mentions but rarely by any real name.

Thank you so very much for your tremendously detailed answer!

You are a scholar of all thing Avengers!

To be specific if you had to choose between just France or Germany which of those two would top the list?

Thinking the shows big wigs were pandering to their European audience & it worked didn't it?

dissolute wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2023 6:27 am Other candle episodes off the top of my head, I'm sure there are many more!:

A Change of Bait (sort of), Mission to Montreal, Warlock, The Secrets Broker (I think..), The Murder Market, Castle De'ath, Too Many Christmas Trees, A Touch of Brimstone, A Sense of History, Game (I think...)

And Town of No Return where Steed memorably sets fire to Terence Alexander's moustache with a candle! The inn seems a bit short of electric light.

In Death Despatch they travel from the Caribbean to Peru and Chile via Columbia, I believe. Perhaps the longest distance covered by an episode apart from the ship voyage in Mission to Montreal.

One of the things I missed when they moved onto film was that The Avengers became almost exclusively set in Britain. I liked their globe-trotting in the VT seasons but I guess ITC was cornering the market in adventures "abroad" (however unconvincing) in things like The Saint, Danger Man and ultimately stuff like Jason King.

Of course, The New Avengers went to France a few times. And Canada...

Franky's right on all points, I stopped with listing the countries because I was supposed to be working... maybe I'll do a more comprehensive list soon.
I can't believe I forgot the moustache-scorching candle in "The Town of No Return"

unclefester wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2023 11:07 am Thank you so very much for your tremendously detailed answer!

You are a scholar of all thing Avengers!

To be specific if you had to choose between just France or Germany which of those two would top the list?

Thinking the shows big wigs were pandering to their European audience & it worked didn't it?

France for sure, Germany doesn't get much of a look in and only ever gets mentioned in passing (e.g. the fascists coming from there in The Mauritius Penny - but that episode mentions a lot of countries, or the nazis in Dead of Winter).

Thank you

Learning lots here!

The New Avengers mentions Germany a couple of times I think with Gambit having received a bullet going over the (Berlin) wall and using the fact to chat up a German archivist lady (Eagle's Nest? Which of course has the "last flight" from Nazi Germany and Peter Cushing as a German doctor/scientist), Steed probably mentions going over the wall too, and then some of To Catch A Rat is set in East Germany I think? At least in flashback.

I'm trying to remember if Terence Lodge's Borowski character in Man With Two Shadows has been to Germany recently or is just brainwashed to have a German as one of his multiple personalities.

You're right, Germany features a lots in The New Avengers - The Eagle's Nest, To Catch a Rat, Dead Men are Dangerous, Angels of Death ... but so does France: Angels of Death, The Lion and the Unicorn, K is for Kill (x2) - then there are the four Canadian episodes. I'll work on that list.

Years ago I started producing this, An Avengers locations map

I have to admit I never finished the thing as I just wasn't able to get it looking decent enough to be put online. It was originally intended for Alan's Avengers Declassified website.



My photoshop skills have luckily improved somewhat. Maybe I should give it another go.