Series 5 — Episode 15
The Joker
by Brian Clemens
Directed by Sidney Hayers
Steed trumps an ace
Emma plays a lone hand
Production No E.66.6.15
Production completed: April 11 1967. First transmission: April 26 1967.
Regional broadcasts
Broadcaster | Date | Time |
---|---|---|
Rediffusion London | 28/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
ABC Midlands | 29/04/1967 | 9.10pm |
ABC North | 29/04/1967 | 9.10pm |
Anglia Television | 28/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
Border Television | 25/02/1968 | 7.25pm |
Channel Television | 17/07/1968 | 8.00pm |
Grampian Television | 28/02/1968 | 8.00pm |
Southern Television | 28/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
Scottish Television | 29/12/1967 | 8.00pm |
Tyne Tees Television | 26/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
Ulster Television | 7/03/1968 | 7.30pm |
Westward Television | 17/07/1968 | 8.00pm |
Harlech Television | 9/06/1968 | 7.25pm |
TV Times listing



9.10 The Avengers
starring
Patrick Macnee
as John Steed
and
Diana Rigg
as Emma Peel
in
The Joker
By Brian Clemens
In which Steed trumps an ace — and Emma plays a lone hand …
Cast also includes
Prendergast | Peter Jeffrey |
Ola | Sally Nesbitt |
Strange young man | Ronald Lacey |
Major George Fancy | John Stone |
Designed by Robert Jones
Music by Laurie Johnson
Directed by Sidney Hayers
Produced by Albert Fennell
and Brian Clemens
Executive Producer
Julian Wintle
ABC Weekend Network Production


International broadcasts
Broadcaster | Date | Time |
---|---|---|
ABN2 Sydney, Australia | 10/10/1967 | 8.00pm |
ABQ2 Brisbane, Australia | 13/11/1967 | 7.30pm |
ABV2 Melbourne, Australia | 9/10/1967 | 8.00pm |
ABS2 Adelaide, Australia | 21/11/1967 | 7.30pm |
ABC New York, USA | 12/05/1967 | 10.00pm |
ORTF2 France | ||
Suisse Romande, Switzerland | 24/06/1968 | 8.35pm |
French title | Le Jocker | |
ZDF Germany | 30/01/1968 | 9.15pm |
German title | Weekend auf dem Lande | |
KRO Netherlands | 11/11/1969 | 9.55pm |
Dutch title | De joker | |
Svizzera Italiana | 25/01/1974 | 9.00pm |
Italian title | il jolly | |
Spain | 11/12/1967 | 4.10pm |
Spanish title | El comodín |








Episode Rating
Subject | 0–5 |
---|---|
Direction | 5 stars |
Music | 5 stars |
Humour | 3 stars |
Intro/tag | 3½ stars |
Mastermind | 5 stars |
Plot | 4 stars |
Emma | 5 stars |
Set Design | 2½ stars |
Overall (0–10) |
8½ stars |
Excellent from top to bottom. Diana Rigg and Peter Jeffrey shine in this homage to the Hitchcockian psychological thriller. I must enjoy the dark side because I rate this as one of the five best episodes ever.
After a fall down the stairs in his apartment, Steed barely
has the strength to tell Mrs. Peel she’s needed — to care for
him!
She has already arranged to spend a weekend in Devon with a
bastion of the Bridge world — Sir Cavalier Rusicana. Steed is
told an old nemesis of the Avengers, Max Prendergast, has
escape gaol in Germany and heading their way. Realising that
his injury was no accident, Steed sets out for Devon, sure
that Max is trying to kill them. Alone in a country manor,
Emma is terrorised by the strange housekeeper and a disturbed
young man, then nearly murdered by Prendergast, but Steed
plays the joker — finishing the criminal’s plans.
A relaxing game of solitaire interrupted by Mrs. Peel, the
Avengers trade card tricks — Mrs. Peel not wanting to ruin the
trick that produces a bottle of Bollinger.
The Cars
Marque/Model | Colour | Number Plate |
---|---|---|
Lotus Elan S3 | glacier blue | SJH 499D |
Bentley Speed Six 1926 | British racing green | RX 6180 |
Ford Prefect (107) | blue | - |
Who’s Killing Whom?
Victim | Killer | Method |
---|---|---|
Major George Fancy | Max Prendergast V* | Poisoned razor blade |
Strange Young Man | Max Prendergast V* | Pistol |

The Fashions
Emma’s Fashions | Steed’s Fashions |
---|---|
Continuity and trivia
- 2:15 — That’s not Peter Jeffrey or Sally Nesbit reaching for the scissors!
- 3:30 — Rocky Taylor takes the fall for Steed.
- 3:25–3:55 — Right at the beginning of the episode, Mrs. Peel arrives at Steed’s apartment and rings the doorbell, then throws the vase through the glass to gain entry. All this time, the three lower buttons on her coat are fastened, but when she opens the door and comes through [3:47], the middle button is unfastened, and it’s done up again moments later when she’s mixing him a stiff drink.
- 4:00 — Steed’s tuba, blown up in the previous episode, is back to it’s normal shape.
- 4:15 — Emma mentions she’s visiting Sir Cavalier Rousicana and Steed quips, “He sounds like an opera”. Of course he does, the name is a play on "Cavalleria rusticana", the one-act opera by Pietro Mascagni.
- 6:24 — It’s the same house exterior set as in The Superlative Seven, just a bit cleaner.
- 7:30 — It’s the same hallway set as well, except the upper side stairs have been removed and the playing card door set into the back wall. At 9:24 — you can see the hole in the newel post where the side stairs have been removed.
- 8:39 — You can see the shadow of the boom microphone on the painting above Ola’s head.
- 12:36 — Steed’s kitchen is poorly designed — when he unplugs the coffee pot, the cord goes flying off the counter.
- 13:25 — Steed’s military friend who’s killed with the poisoned razor blade is billed in the cast list as Major George Fancy, but answers the telephone with the words "Wentworth here". Of course, he might have been Lord Wentworth.
- 22:38–22:50 (23:00–23:20) — The strange young man and Mrs. Peel are much closer together in the first reverse angle than in the shots before and after, with the strange young man not stepping forward until just before the second reverse angle (at 22:47).
- 23:53 — The close-up of Emma while she’s listening to the strange young man has her leaning on the bannister of the staircase, but the mid shots have her standing near the suit of armour. She only leans on the bannister after the strange young man goes to use the telephone (24:49). They must have forgotten that when they filmed the close-ups.
- 25:43 — Sir Cavalier’s house is at Little Dayton, which is “the other side of Exmoor”.
- 25:00–26:35 — This very pivotal scene is a complete rewrite, the original script had it as phone call and George wasn’t killed.
- Major Fancy wears some pretty unimpressive ribbons: Korea Medal 1951, United Nations Service Medal for Korea 1950–1955, General Service Medal 1918–1962, General Service Medal 1962–2007, and what might be a Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal 1953
- 28:30 — They thankfully cut the line “I’m Jack the Ripper”, the strange young man simply says, “I’m travelling incognito it’s a fact!”
- 30:34 (31:26) — When Mrs. Peel is investigating the roses in her bedroom, she’s standing by the bed looking around and you can spot the shadow of a stage hand’s arm appear twice, on the wall above the bed.
- 31:43 — the reconstructed photo doesn’t seem to be the same as the photo chopped up at the beginning of the episode.
- 39:26 — How long has she been sitting in the box room? The hallway is festooned with roses.
- 43:10–43:16 (44:40) — Prendergast leans forward in his chair in the frontal shot, but the close-ups of the hands cutting the photo still have him sitting back in the chair.
- 45:46 — The hole in the card door caused by the bullet goes the wrong way, the paper sticks out instead of in.
- 46:00 — Rocky Taylor stands in for Peter Jeffrey and there’s some very fine intercutting of close-ups of Peter. I’m not sure who took the tumble down the stairs for Sally Nesbitt. Diana Rigg seems to be doing her own stunts in most of the sequence, so we can assume it’s Cyd Child, who so closely resembled her, in the action shots.
- 46:15 onwards — the original script has Steed appear from behind the card door and knock Ola down, then trip over her and fall down the stairs; it’s Emma who saves him, so the poignant closing scene is another rewrite.
- 46:23 — How does Steed start the gramophone with the ‘Mein Liebling’ record (which must be upstairs somewhere) when he’s lurking behind a playing card in the dining room?
- Running time: 49′17″
- Sally Nesbit is cousin to Sir John Hunt, who led the team which first climbed Everest.
- Some of Sally’s stunts were done by Art Thomas.
Music notes
-
Speaking of that song, Whispering Carl Schmidt’s “Mein Leibling, Mein Rose”, Laurie Johnson recently wrote:
Laurie Johnson composed the tune, Brian Clemens wrote an English lyric and Leo Birnbaum, a viola player in the orchestra, translated it into German [ unfortunately someone made an error when they produced the props and the record that was actually released, it should have been ‘Mein Liebling, Meine Rose’ — ed. ]. The title was “Mein Liebling, Mein Rose”. For the recording session Mike Sammes of the Mike Sammes Singers, took on the persona required for this musical subterfuge. Mike was a much called-upon session musician of the day.
Strangely enough, the impact of the featuring of the record in that one episode resulted in the necessity to release a commercial 45 record of the song. Fans from all over fell under its strange spell. Even Kim Novak wrote to Laurie Johnson, from the States, requesting a copy of the dastardly confidence trick. From start to finish, the song and recording had to be accomplished in a matter of days to be ready for the episode. The name “Deutsche Phon” (see left) was a fictional record company name thought up by Brian Clemens for the label[ suggested by the name & colours of “Deutsche Gramophon” & the logo of “Domino” — ed. ]
A note on the timecodes
Timecodes for episodes are problematic as each release has its own quirks so the 2009–11 Optimum Releasing/Studio Canal DVD sets have different run times compared to the A&E and Contender DVD sets from a decade beforehand. The newer Studio Canal & Via Vision blu rays seems to be back in line with the earlier releases, except they often have StudioCanal idents lasting 20 to 22 seconds added to the beginning.
The Optimum Releasing/Studio Canal DVD releases were remastered and their frame rate has been changed, resulting in a shorter running time. However, the picture quality has increased markedly. I assume this is because they used a simple 2:2 pulldown (24 @ 25) when converting from the original film masters (film runs at 24 frames per second, while PAL runs at 25fps, the new DVDs are in PAL format).
This pulldown was also the cause of audio errors on many episodes, especially for Series 5, as the audio sped up to match the new rate (4% faster), rather than being properly pitch-shifted. Checking the dialogue sheets, which list the feet and frames of the reels, it looks like the speed change is around 5.04%, so there may be some cuts as well — probably from around the commercial breaks and ends of reels, as they amount to about 25 seconds. All my assumptions are based on the episodes having been filmed on standard 35mm film, which has 16 frames per foot and runs at 24 frames per second, so a minute of footage uses 90 feet of film (1,440 frames).
The audio errors have been corrected in the currently available DVDs, but the 2:2 pulldown remains. There is also the addition of a Studio Canal lead-in, converted to black and white to match the episode for Series Four, but colour for Series Five, adding an extra 18 or 19 seconds to the running time and making it harder to match timecodes with previous releases. It’s annoying that it has been slapped on every single episode, Series 1–3 didn’t suffer this indignity.
The previous Contender and A&E DVD releases didn’t seem to suffer from these problems, so I assume they either used soft telecine and preserved the original 24fps rate of the film (my preferred option in DVDs) or they used 24 @ 25 pulldown (2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:2:3 Euro pull-down).
Thankfully, the new blu ray releases for series 4–6 appear to use native 24fps with soft telecine so the running times and pitch all seem to be correct again along with a much greatly improved picture quality, most notably in the Tara King episodes which are finally (mostly) back to their original glory.