Series 5 — Episode 3
Escape In Time

Production

Production dates: September to end of October 1966

The tag scenes for this and several other episodes were filmed at Lord Montagu's Beaulieu Palace House, which has housed the Montagu Motor Museum since 1952, the Museum became the National Motor Museum in 1972. Roy Rossotti, who also directed most of The Bird Who Knew Too Much, directed these tag scenes on location, accompanied by a large press contingent; film and photographs of the shoot are widely available online.

Director John Krish also did a fair bit of location work, filming Mrs. Peel's pursuit of Vesta along Mimms Lane, Shenley until she loses her and Vesta plans an ambush in a field of Clipper Down, off Beacon Road, Ashbridge. The shoot of the ambush was beset with difficulty, as John Krish wasn't happy with the look of Mrs. Peel's leap out of the way of the motorbike, insisting they do it again and again to get closer. Eventually, Cyd Child let the bike hit her in the leg after which she walked up to the director, John Krish, and asked, “Was that close enough?” The shot of the huntsman falling off the bike also had to be retaken when a crew member thought Rocky Taylor had injured himself and rushed in to give aid before "Cut" was called.

The blindfold journey to Thyssen's house in the hearse was shot at the familiar landmark of Deeves Hall Cottage, Deeves Hall Lane, outside the village of Ridge while Thyssen's house itself was the also much-used house of Starveacres, on Watford Road, Radlett, which we last saw in Small Game for Big Hunters.

The Elstree studios became available during the filming of this episode, so the Mackiedockie Court scenes were filmed there in studio, and Mrs. Peel's attack on Mitchell was in the backlot, using one of the smaller water tanks, which had been drained.

This episode had always been previously listed as filmed in early to mid October 1966 but the "Where is Blake?" newspaper banner indicates that the Mackiedockie Court sequence at least was filmed after 22 October 1966 when the Russian double agent George Blake escaped form Wormwood Scrubs. It's a great touch by the set dresser to add that little bit of topical detail!

Regional broadcasts

Broadcaster	Date	Time
Rediffusion London	27/01/1967	8.00pm
ABC Midlands	28/01/1967	9.10pm
ABC North	28/01/1967	9.10pm
Anglia Television	27/01/1967	8.00pm
Border Television	29/01/1967	8.10pm
Channel Television	27/01/1967	8.00pm
Grampian Television	13/12/1967	8.00pm
Southern Television	23/01/1967	8.00pm
Scottish Television	28/01/1967	9.10pm
Tyne Tees Television	28/01/1967	9.10pm
Ulster Television	14/12/1967	7.30pm
Westward Television	27/01/1967	8.00pm
Television Wales & West	25/01/1967	8.00pm

TV Times listing

International broadcasts

Broadcaster	Date	Time
ABN2 Sydney, Australia	11/04/1967	8.00pm
ABQ2 Brisbane, Australia	15/05/1967	7.30pm
ABV2 Melbourne, Australia	10/04/1967	8.00pm
ABS2 Adelaide, Australia	23/05/1967	7.30pm
ABC New York, USA	10/02/1967	10.00pm
ORTF2 France	23/07/1968	8.30pm
Suisse Romande, Switzerland	8/07/1968	8.35pm
French title	Remontons le temps
ZDF Germany	26/09/1967	9.15pm
German title	Fahrkarten in die Vergangenheit
KRO Netherlands	28/05/1968	9.10pm
Dutch title	Vlucht in het verleden
Svizzera Italiana	5/07/1974	9.00pm
Italian title	fuga nel tempo*
Spain	9/10/1967	4.20pm
Spanish title	Escapatoria a tiempo / Escape en el tiempo

* Italian listings showed this as 10pm, as Italy observed Summer Time and Switzerland did not.

This episode was moved up the schedule in the United States, displacing The Bird Who Knew Too Much, which had originally been scheduled for February 10 1967. That episode would screen four weeks later, on March 10 1967.

Episode Rating

Subject	0–5
Direction	4 stars
Music	3½ stars
Humour	3½ stars
Intro/tag	3½ stars
Mastermind	4 stars
Plot	4 stars
Emma	4 stars
Set Design	4 stars
Overall (0–10)	8 stars

I like this episode, but there are points where I would like more. Maybe more sustained humour, and a less stereotypical Thyssen would do it.

Mrs. Peel’s Grand Hunt Ball invitation turns out to be a summons from Steed, and they set out to discover what’s become of the world’s most wanted criminals.
They’re on the trail of Josino and follow him as he acquires a stuffed toy and a shaving cut. Steed takes the same path and ends up going through time to 1790! Emma follows, much to the gang’s surprise and confusion, and finds herself in the Tudor era after the mastermind cottons onto her. A leap across time saves Emma from the stocks and exposes Thyssen’s fraud.
Exit the Avengers in a veteran taxi — Emma in the driver’s seat and Steed with a face full of soot.

The Cars

Marque/Model	Colour	Number Plate
MGB	white, red upholstery	5038 KM
Lotus Elan S3	glacier blue	SJH 499D
Triumph T120 motorcycle	red/silver	B00 54
Rolls-Royce Hearse 20/25, coachwork by Woodall Nicholson	black	RW 6425
Four-horse carriage	blue and yellow	-
Bentley Speed Six 1926	British racing green	RX 6180
Unic Taxi 1908 Owned by Lord Montagu and on display at Beaulieu — National Motor Museum.	burgundy/black	MD 1480

Who’s Killing Whom?

Victim	Killer	Method
Karl Bleschner	Waldo Thyssen? V*	? [prior to episode]
Jubert	Waldo Thyssen? V*	? [prior to episode]
President Bibigyn	Waldo Thyssen? V*	? [prior to episode]
Clyde Paxton	‘Bruno’ Thyssen V*	16th Century pistol
Tubby Vincent	‘Edwin’ Thyssen V*	Stabbed with a Jacobean dagger
Colonel Josino	Waldo Thyssen? V*	?

The Fashions

Emma’s Fashions

Steed’s Fashions

red silk palazzo pants with a burgundy silk low cut, long skirted top with blue lining, silver clasp at waist & silver shoes turquoise jacket, zippered, quilted, high collar, single vent in back & black gloves, black long-sleeved rollneck skivvy and hipsters with wide webbing belt (2) without gloves & jacket (2) with driving gloves top & pants of (2) with a navy A-line coat and a white cap. Georgian costume — powdered wig, beauty spot, purple silk dress — Mrs. Peel loses the wig at one stage. striped (white/mid blue/dark blue) long sleeve t-shirt styled dress, mini length (1)

grey single-breasted 3-piece suit with 4 buttons, slanted flap pockets and 2 very long vents, white shirt, electric blue tie, black bowler hat & umbrella pale grey double-breasted suit, felt collar, flap pockets, 2 very long vents, wide skirt, grey Chelsea boots, umbrella and bowler, white shirt, grey tie with wh spot navy single-breasted 3-piece suit with a peaked collar, 1 long vent, 3 hard buttons, flap pockets, white shirt, purple paisley tie, black bowler hat & umbrella, black chelsea boots grey Georgian costume — dandy: white waistcoat blue&white brocade jacket, black hose, buckled shoes dark taupe jacket single-breasted 1v, green wc brass buttons, pale khaki shirt, dark green and bronze tie, beige trousers, brown bowler and chelsea boots, black umbrella navy single-breasted 3-piece suit with piped cuffs, waistcoat with piped lapels, white shirt, thin navy tie no tiepin suit of (3) with navy tie white shirt

Continuity and trivia

1. 
   1:50 — It’s those doors again! You might remember them from From Venus with Love and The Bird Who Knew Too Much, amongst others.
2. 2:40 — great set design for the “time tunnel”, I especially like the conveyor belt in the floor.
3. 3:00–3:42 — There’s a fragment of celluloid or something caught top left of the screen when Paxton wakes up in the Elizabethan room. It remains for the tracking shot, so it’s stuck to the camera lens.
4. 4:25 — The Hunt Ball invitation is propped up against the bird sculpture seen in other episodes.
5. 4:37 — Steed utters the old chestnut, “one of our best agents”. It’s surprising how often the best agents are the ones killed!
6. 4:41–5:41 — There’s a hair caught top right/centre of the lens in the mortuary scene.
7. 4:45 and throughout — Clapham is wearing the regimental tie of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
8. 7:20 and throughout — the time machine is a modified Jennings Governor slot machine, painted in shades of blue and grey and the governor’s head covered by a gold Ganesha. The three reel tumbler with the circular viewports has been replaced by a four digit date spinner (I can’t find any evidence of a Governor with four reels although there are Jennings Buckaroo machines with four reels).
9. 8:37 — The cameraman loses focus as Peter Bowles steps off his mark and walks towards the camera & Tubby Vincent, he regains it by 8:40.

8:44 — Hamming it up as always, Peter Bowles looks dead at the camera and smiles as he stabs Tubby Vincent.

10. 8:48–8:58 — When Tubby Vincent escape Thyssen after being stabbed, Thyssen has his back to the death masks and is thrust sideways, yet ends up slumped against the door, several yards away.
11. 9:42 — The cameraman loses focus when Emma walks towards the camera holding the note about Josino.
12. 10:11 — Josino passes a newspaper advert asking “Where is Blake?” George Blake was an MI6 spy who was turned communist during the Korean War, becoming a Russian double agent. He was convicted of spying in 1961 but escaped Wormwood Scrubs prison on 22 October 1966. This would suggest that episode was not finished until the end of October 1966.

13. 
    12:42 — Mackidockie Court must be near Tom Savage’s studio (The Bird Who Knew Too Much), as they’re both near the same Stone Street. And they must both be near Purbright & Co. (Quick-Quick Slow Death and How to Succeed …. At Murder) which is on Mackiedockie Street.
14. 14:19–15:55 — In the motorcycle fight scene, it’s rather obvious that there’s a stunt double, as the chalk marks on Diana Rigg’s pants are nothing like those on the performer who leaps over (and into! — 14:24) the motorcycle — Cyd Child, getting a minor injury.
    Cyd tells the tale that they redid the scene several times, but every time the director declared it wasn’t close enough. They re-shot the scene one more time and the motorbike hit her, after which she went up to the director, John Krish, and asked, “Was that close enough?”
    
    both legs & arms
    
    sleeve only
    
    right leg
    
    
15. 20:00 — Anjali says that Steed was estimated to be 6′ 2″ tall, and weighs 170lbs; he confirms this is correct, although it is different to what Remak calculates in Killer.
16. 20:45 onwards — Patrick Macnee’s regular stand-in, Rocky Taylor, plays Mitchell who is taking his place as his lookalike in the escape route here, and was the motorcycle huntsman earlier.
17. 21:04 — Cyd Child standing in for Diana Rigg in the fight scene, except for the reverse angle close-ups, of course.
18. 25:20 — Thysen introduces Steed to his ancestors.
    1570
    
    Matthew Thyssen
    Tudor inquisitor
    1600?
    
    Bruno Thyssen
    Elizabe than sportsman
    1680
    
    Edwin Thyssen
    Jacobean duellist
    1790
    
    Samuel Thyssen
    Georgian philanderer
    /
    1870?
    
    Herbert Thyssen
    Victorian squire
    1967
    
    Waldo Thyssen
    Sixties criminal
    
    Matthew Thyssen is possibly based on the real life Richard Topcliffe, an Elizabethan priest hunter and torturer who invented some of his own instruments of torture, reputedly some designed for women to satisfy his erotic fantasies.
19. 29:39 — Lens flare in the top right corner of the screen.
20. 29:53 — Lens flare in the top left corner of the screen.
21. 30:08 — A nice bit of hand-held camera work at the beginning of Mrs. Peel’s solo trip to Mackidockie Court.
22. 32:17 — There’s something stuck to the lens on the left side as the hearse passes the barn at the intersection.
23. 32:25 — There’s something stuck to the lens top right as Smith marches Mrs. Peel into Thyssen’s sitting room. It reappears at 34:40–35:57.
24. 33:52 — That’s not Patrick Macnee and Geoffrey Bayldon in the Bentley, it’s probably Paul Weston driving but it might be Jim Mitchell, the driver hired by J. N. Gooch Esq. to deliver the car to the show.
25. 37:58 — When the shot cuts to Vesta entering, there’s some piece of equipment across the top right-hand corner, and the object from 32:25 reappears.
26. (38:00) — There’s a corrupt frame on the DVD release at 36:36 bit it’s not on the blu-ray.
27. 40:04 — Thyssen’s house is Starveacres, 16 Watford Road, Radlett and large houses like this were not built in the area until the Nineteenth Century. Jessie Louisa Regnart Coles was born in 1848 and the register of Paines Lane Cemetery in nearby Harrow records her as being either born at or “of” Starveacres.
28. 40:29 — the holes in the stocks are too large to actually restrain Mrs. Peel.
29. 40:41, 41:22, etc. — You can just see the flare guard, or maybe a safe area frame, in the very top left corner of the screen in the angled CUs of Thyssen. It reappears during the Elizabethan era fight and when they re-enter the Sixties room and find Vesta still cuffed to the pillar.
30. 44:33 — the coin that pops down into the slot looks like an old Byzantine coin but it's inscription, what you can reed of it, is complete gibberish: “..EEPODRREBRAL CONSTITUSIONI”
31. 45:31 — Rocky Taylor is standing in for Patrick Macnee during his dance with the pike.
32. 46:54 — Stunt doubles for Peter Bowles (Alf Joint in a wig and false beard) and Patrick Macnee (Rocky Taylor again) but Diana Rigg does all her own work in the fight scene.
33. 49:01 — Upon finding Vesta handcuffed to a pillar in the 1960s, Emma asks, “Didn’t we get the vote?”
34. 49:11 — Bird sculpture back near the door again.
35. The false time tunnel and stuffed toys used a tickets or tokens for the journey is used in an episode of Lost.
36. Running time: 51′24″

Cast notes

1. The executioner is played by stunt regular Terry Plummer — he’s seen at his best (although, as always, uncredited) as Frederick in A Surfeit of H₂O, but turns up in The Superlative Seven (his only credit, despite being in thick Chinese makeup), Never, Never, Say Die and a host of other episodes.