Series 4 — Episode 13
Too Many Christmas Trees

Production

Production dates: 18/02 – 1/03/1965

There was no break for the crew and filming of this episode started the day after the previous one, Death at Bargain Prices, wrapped. To contrast with that episode, there were several exterior shots, mostly Steed driving to Storey’s house, as well as the use of the standing set for Steed’s flat and the large mansion set we had seen in Castle De’Ath (both the banquet hall and staircase as well as the bedroom and hallway sets). Robert Jones was earmarked to replace Harry Pottle as art director but became unavailable during production and Harry Pottle stepped back in, so it's unclear who did what. Given that Jones received the billing, we can assume he did most of the work, designing the extraordinary trees and the sets. Jones’ eerie cut-out Christmas trees and looming basket full of presents made Christmas definitely not for children. However,the rebirth of Castle De’Ath as Brandon Storey’s house, achieved by replacing the Highland motifs with Christmas decorations, seems to be Pottle’s work. Once again, Roy Baker lends his extraordinary vision as a director to an episode and exemplifies the Avengers look.

Filming continued until the first week of March, as reported by The Daily Cinema on March 1^st, and may have finished a few days later than listed above.

Regional broadcasts

Broadcaster	Date	Time
Rediffusion London	23/12/1965	9.40pm
ABC Midlands	25/12/1965	10.10pm
ABC North	25/12/1965	10.10pm
Anglia Television	23/12/1965	8.00pm
Border Television	24/12/1965	8.00pm
Channel Television	25/12/1965	10.10pm
Grampian Television	24/12/1965	8.00pm
Southern Television	25/12/1965	10.15pm
Scottish Television	21/12/1965	8.00pm
Tyne Tees Television	25/12/1965	10.10pm
Ulster Television	25/12/1965	8.00pm
Westward Television	25/12/1965	10.10pm
Television Wales & West	25/12/1965	10.10pm

TV Times listing

International broadcasts

Broadcaster	Date	Time
ABN2 Sydney, Australia	25/12/1966	9.20pm
ABQ2 Brisbane, Australia	25/12/1966	9.20pm
ABV2 Melbourne, Australia	25/12/1966	9.20pm
ABS2 Adelaide, Australia	25/12/1966	9.20pm
ABC New York, USA	11/08/1966	10.00pm
TF1 France	21/09/1973	12.00am
Suisse Romande, Switzerland	17/12/1966	8.35pm
French title	Faites de beaux rêves
ZDF Germany
German title	Der Weihnachtsalptraum
KRO Netherlands
Dutch title
Italy	3/12/80 C51
Italian title	Troppi alberi di Natale
Spain	7/03/1967	10.15pm
Spanish title	Demasiados árboles en Navidad

In Australia, all regions held this episode back as a Christmas special, shown simultaneoursly throught the country at 9.20pm.

Italy did not show this episode in the 1960s, the Italian titles are from the Tele Torino International broadcast in the 1980s, and DVD releases. The Netherlands and Germany did not include it in contemporary broadcasts and fRance had to wait until 1973 to see it.

This episode was not shown in France on ORTF2 in 1967 but was finally shown as part of a series of eight previously unbroadcast episodes, shown on TF1 after a run of repeats from series 6 on Sunday afternoons in 1973.

Episode Rating

Subject	0–5
Direction	4 stars
Music	4 stars
Humour	4 stars
Intros/tags	4 stars
Villains	4 stars
Plot	4 stars
Emma	4½ stars
Sets/Props	3½ stars
Overall (0–10)	8 stars

Maybe festive, but not exactly cheerful; the villainous machinations of the disturbingly believable Jeanette Sterk give me the creeps. Welcome relief from the fancy dress costumes, especially Mrs. Peel’s.

The Fashions

Emma’s Fashions

Steed’s Fashions

grey wool suit with skirt (knee length, zipped up back), tight at waist with slanted flap-covered pockets on hips, two buttons fastening jacket that has no vents, worn with pale grey rollneck skivvy, black gloves and handbag, black high heels (1) without the jacket, later with a blue and white vertical striped apron fur coat (mink?) and matching hood over grey rollneck skivvy and stretch nylon pants, white slippers (3) without the coat and hood Oliver Twist costume with tight woollen trousers white fur(?) coat with ribbed sleeves and three large round furred buttons to close, over white rollneck blouse, white headband and mittens

cotton winter pyjamas, initially with bowler hat (dream sequence) dark dressing gown over pyjamas black pullover and dark trousers brown overcoat with dark collar, brown bowler, dark patterned scarf, over Prince of Wales check jacket, white shirt and dark flower motif tie, dark waistcoat with silver buttons (4) without the overcoat and bowler Sydney Carlton costume (briefly without jacket and waistcoat) (also in a dream sequence) (5) (6) black overcoat over black pullover and trousers, later with a black bowler

The Cars

Marque/Model/Type	Number Plate
Bentley	UW 4887
One-horse surrey	-

Who’s Killing Whom?

Victim	Killer	Method
Freddy Marshall	? V*	brain hemorrhage
Jeremy Wade V*	? V*	brain hemorrhage
Jenkins V*	Emma	shot
Brandon Storey V*	Steed	shot

Continuity and trivia

1. 1:24 — Steed dreams of styrofoam snow?
2. 4:43 — Steed keeps his sugar in the canister marked “wild thyme”.
3. 5:58 — A Bond reference? The folder for Frederick David Marshall and his photograph inside it have the number 0015 on it.
4. 6:51 – The quality of the prop newspaper shows how far they’ve come, and how much bigger the budget for the filmed series. Gone are the clearly pasted on paragraphs or drawn approximations, it’s a typeset masterpiece complete with half-tone photograph of Freddy. It purports to be the Dail Mail and Evening Chronicle for Thursday, December 23 1965.

   The article in the paper reads:

   Mystery death in hotel room

   Screams… then man found dead

   A MAN was found dead last night in a room in the Empress Hotel, Berners (or Bermore?) – street W.1.

   A chambermaid, Miss D. Holman, heard screams coming from room 106 and when members of the staff gained entry to the room with a pass key the man, registered as Mr. F. Marshall, was found sitting fully clothed in a chair. The hotel doctor was called and confirmed that the man was dead.

   Mr. Marshall had been at the hotel for two days before his death, and had stayed in his room all that time, taking his meals there.

   There’s also an article “Spend… Spend… Spend… Bumper Christmas” about 1965 being a record Christmas spending spree, despite prices having come down from 1964, and another article “The snags in building” about the Home Secretary, Sir Frank Soskice, introducing sterner immigration checks. Interestingly, in real life, Sir FRank Soskice was sacked from the Home Secretary position on this exact date, 23^rd December, 1965, so the props department were exceptionally lucky. There are two other articles, one intruguingly headlined “No bark, no sex, - unfair to dogs!” and aother titled “Sotheby’s take on their American rivals”.

5. 9:22 — Steed’s Christmas cards:
   • “Come fly with me, Amy”;
   • a card from Carlotta;
   • “Best wishes for the future, Cathy”;
   • “Longing for you, Irma”;
   • a card from Boofums, which leads to the exchange:

     EMMA: Who is Boofums?
     STEED: The Post Office mistress at Ongar.

   The final script version of the scene differs from that in hte draft script:

   STEED: Give me a hand will you?
   EMMA: Mmmm, I love opening other people’s cards.
   STEED: Ha! See who hasn’t forgotten me this time!
   EMMA: (OPENS A CARD) Ah… Come fly with me, Amy.
   STEED: Ah! Chocks away!! … (OPENS A CARD) Carlotta, yes! Car-lotta!
   EMMA: Best wishes for the future, Cathy. (HANDS THE CARD TO STEED)
   STEED: Mrs. Gale! Ah, how nice of her to remember me! (LOOKS AT THE ENVELOPE) What can she be doing in Fort Knox?
   EMMA: Longing for you, Irma
   STEED: Errrgh, charming Irma. I can remember a terrible time in Monte Carlo when …
   EMMA: (ANNOYED) Who is “Boofums”??
   STEED: (SMILES) hah, the post-mistress at Ongar.
   EMMA: (HANDS HIM ALL THE OTHER CARDS) Much more of this and I shall lose my appetite.

6. 9:38 — Steed receives a Christmas card from Mrs. Gale and comments “Mrs. Gale! Ah, how nice of her to remember me! … What can she be doing in Fort Knox?” (Honor Blackman of course had gone to film Goldfinger which is partly set in Fort Knox. This joke reprises the one about “pussy-footing” on the beach at the end of Lobster Quadrille.)
7. 10:40-12:00 — Steed’s Bentley is one of the older tourer types, with a large main windshield and two small personal shields. In most of the exterior tracking shots the main windshield is up, but it’s down in all the studio-shot close-ups against the projected background. There’s one exterior with the screen down (10:35–10:37) – the one that actually has Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg in it instead of the stand-ins, so it looks like an error by the Second Unit.
8. 11:30 — it’s clearly not Patrick Macnee & Diana Rigg in the car as they turn into the driveway, despite them appearing in most of the travelling location shots. I can’t place either stand-in.
9. 14:14 — The upstairs hall leading to Steed and Mrs. Peel’s rooms is the same set as the upstairs bedroom hallway in Castle De’Ath, the rest of the set – the stairs and great hall is the same as well, just with Dickensian and Yuletide decoration instead of the Scottish props.
10. 29:40 – the shadow of the boom microphone bobs around over Mrs. Peel’s head.
11. 36:58 — Steed gives Emma a retractable pen full of tear gas as a Christmas present, she later breaks it during the fight in the hall of mirrors.
12. 40:07 — Steed sings “The Grand Old Duke of York” when Jenkins delivers his drugged drink and (42:40) – “Green Grow the Rushes-O” and (44:30) “Oranges and Lemons”* to prevent Janice from accessing his mind. Mrs. Peel accompanies him on the last two after he quickly explains what he’s doing.
    * The strange bit about “here comes a chopper to chop off your head.”
13. 46:00/47:35 — Steed has a gun tucked into one of his boots which Emma removes in order to shoot Jenkins.
14. The plot bears a great relation to Death’s Door, except that there the dreams coming true is explained rationally (which is much more palatable to my sceptical outlook).
15. Running time 49′34″