Steineded How sad is this?

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

jc-osms Possibly the best-known and most successful of the escapist adventure series from the British ABC studios of the mid-late 60's, I remember "The Avengers" fondly from my childhood. I have all the Patrick McNee / Diana Rigg episodes on DVD and prompted by the recent passing of Mr McNee, I finally indulged myself by watching a random episode (the first of the 1967 colourised series), but it could have been any one from that era and I'd have been just as well entertained, I know.I never saw any of the Honor Blackman series and do recall that McNee and the post-Rigg Linda Thorson just didn't have the same chemistry, plus the writing and plotting was becoming too far-fetched (all that "Mother" nonsense, for example) when compared to its golden era of 1965-1967.McNee is splendid as the debonair and uber-cool John Steed substituting a sharp-edged umbrella in place of guns and the pre-Grand Dame Diana Rigg smoulders as the enigmatic, karate-chopping Mrs Peel. Much was made of her one-piece jump-suits of the time, no doubt helpful in protecting her modesty as she dispatched yet another set of baddies with her martial arts moves, even if today said costumes look more functional than sexy. The plots are invariably flight-of-fancy fantasy, often pitting the dynamic duo against some world-threatening individual or organisation but were usually laced with subtle and occasionally sexy interplay between the two leads, top-and-tailed in every episode with a mute opening "We're needed" sequence and similarly light-hearted epilogue with just a hint of romantic frisson between them.The best episodes tended to be written by the also recently departed Brian Clemens and the cream of British TV character actors usually made guest appearances from episode to episode. Utterly charming and entertaining, and with a distinctive title sequence and theme tune, "The Avengers", is still well-remembered today as the epitome of style and class. The McNee / Rigg axis definitely saw the show at its best helped no doubt by its identification with the swinging 60's appeal of anything British at the time. The Avengers to today's youth undoubtedly conjures up Marvel's comic-book team, but to me it'll always recall the classic team of Steed and Peel saving the world weekly and sleekly from some misguided criminal mastermind.

Robert J. Maxwell I can only comment on the episodes using Patrick MacNee and Diana Rigg between 1965 and 1968.What a diverting show it was. MacNee is John Steed, the proper gentleman in bowler hat, wielding his deadly brolly. His character and appearance are perfect for a vehicle like this. It isn't so much that he was never nonplussed, so much as that he was always plussed. Rigg is Emma Peel in her jump suits, zippered up front, with that tantalizing, over-sized ring dangling from the zipper just below her sternoclavicular notch. Diana Rigg has a curious beauty. She sports a pair of wide-set eyes, elevated cheekbones, a perfunctory nose and tiny lips, like a Hentai cartoon. She's a good actress too. Did a fine job as one of the bad daughters in Lawrence Olivier's TV production of "King Lear." She was so popular at the time she left this series that she was whisked off to Broadway for "Abelard and Heloise," which included a topless scene. I understand the theater was jammed, but then the story has always been immensely popular with the masses. There are Abelard and Heloise fan clubs in every dusty little town in the world.The two of them work off each other very well, whether popping the cork of a champagne bottle or fending off evildoers. Their, um, relationship is never fully explained. They both work for some ultra-secret British government organization apparently. Each show opens with Mrs. Peel uncovering a message from Steed, coyly hidden in a box of chocolate or under some peeling wallpaper -- "Mrs. Peel. We're needed." The forces they battle are absurd. Some fantastic organization is breeding a horde of robotic soldiers in a vast, excavated place under a cemetery, and they plan to emerge and take over the British Isles. Or another cabal -- P.U.R.R. -- has invented a device that turns ordinary pussy cats into demonic, homicidal beasts that will be used to eliminate the world's leaders so that P.U.R.R. can take over. Somebody is always trying to take over the world. And Steed and Mrs. Peel are always there to thwart their plans.It isn't broad comedy. A viewer is more likely to smile than laugh out loud. But the scripts are quietly witty and suggestive. The episode about felines -- "The Hidden Tiger" -- has an uncountable number of references and puns on the subject. P.U.R.R. is run by a Mr. Cheshire. (Cheshire cat, get it? "Alice in Wonderland"?) The manager's name is Mr. Manx. Too many puns on pussies and cats to enumerate, but the last word spoken in the episode is "cat-astrophe." The fashion is that of Britain in the period of the early Beatles, and Carnaby Street, and the general sense conveyed is that of a loose-limbed freedom from earlier conventions. Nothing is taken seriously. If a man drops dead in front of Steed and Mrs. Peel, they kneel down, check his pulse, and look at each other with a slight, quizzical frown.The plots are convoluted, and it's easy to lose track of what's going on. At times, one's mind drifts. A series like this must walk a tightrope. "Whimsy" can too easily slip into "cute" or, worse, the abyssal "silly." But the plot is never very important anyway.Everything is handled with style and panache. Bowler-hatted or coiffed auburn, these episodes are heads and shoulders above most of the junk that fill the TV screens today.

Nicholas Rhodes Bowler hat and leather boots, that's the French title for this series which has been very successful here and and the 140 episodes or so are available on DVD !! I remember seeing some of the episodes when I was a boy in England during the 60's. I was stunned by Emma Peel's physical beauty and "childish" humour. Watching some of the Dvd's today, my view hasn't changed and I was just as pleased ! The best episodes were those made with Peel, both in colour and black and white. Not only were the scripts and stories well thought out and very mysterious, the picture quality was absolutely amazing and I liked the opening sequence and music with the two wine glasses on the screen. The episodes made with Gambit and Purdey were of LESS good quality than those with Diana Rigg despite being made almost ten years later ! I remember very well an episode with an empty milk float running across an airport runway - God knows what the story was called.In France, this series has a cult status and everyone has their favourite lady ( Honor "Pussy" Blackman, Linda Thorson, Joanna Lumley, or Diana Rigg ). Steed comes over as the typical English gentleman with the bowler hat. Highly recommendable on an entertainment level and much better than most of the rubbish on our screens today !

schappe1 Honor Blackman then left the show to play Pussy Galore, (what name!) in Goldfinger. The producers decided to retool it. They not only got a new actress but they made several other decisions that impacted the nature of the show. They wanted to market it to America so they shot it on film. This allowed for outdoor shooting and most of the scenes in the 1965-66 monochrome series take place out of doors. It also allowed for more frequent cuts. This increased the pace of the show dramatically and allowed stunt men to turn the fight scenes into choreographed works of art. And the music became much more a part of the show with Laurie Johnson's driving upbeat theme becoming one of TV's classics. After striking out with Elizabeth Shepard, a new actress, Diana Rigg, was hired from the Royal Shakespeare Company. I think she was a huge improvement over the dower, inexpressive Honor Blackman. Rigg had a light comic touch that was both charming and appropriate to the lighter stories that were being done. The headlines of the early 60's and the James Bond movies had brought on a public demand for shows that were about global threats and incorporated science fiction. Now, instead of halting the smuggling of perfume, the Avengers were going to save the world, or at least the British Empire. There was also the new infatuation with all things British on American Television. The show became a comic spoof of people's image of England, full of pompous aristocrats, old soldiers, butlers, nannies, etc. As MacNee has said, from this point the program was mostly a comedy, although it retained enough drama to it to tether it to earth, as in the classics `Too Many Christmas Trees' and `The House that Jack Built'. Towards the end, however an air of silliness crept into the program with shows like `The Girl From Auntie' and `Honey for the Prince', (both of which feature the gorgeous Rigg wearing less than she does in the more famous `A Touch of Brimstone'). Then came the color Rigg series of 1967-68, the first to be shown simultaneously on American TV, (and the first time I saw the show). Now there was an emphasis on `Swinging London' and Carnaby Street fashions. Rigg wore more clothes and more and more outrageous ones. There was a greater tendency to shoot indoors in sets that could be as outlandish as Rigg's clothes. There were fewer episodes that had real dramatic content to them. It was more and more a romp, although this series contains what I think is the best-ever Avengers episode, `Death's Door'. Then Rigg left and they brought in the lovely and charming Thorson. The show now became a total comedy, closer to `Get Smart' than `The Man from Uncle'. It was so lightweight it threatened to float away. And when the 1968-69 season was over, it did, to live on in re-runs that have never ended. They brought it back a decade later, as `The New Avengers', this time heavily influenced by the popularity of `Starsky and Hutch'. MacNee was now the mentor to a couple of younger operatives in a much more violent show. It was gone after a year.The final incarnation of what began as `Police Surgeon' was the horrible 1998 film version, which tried to turn the series into Star Wars, fully copying several scenes from that film series. It featured the charmless Ralph Fiennes as Steed, (why not Hugh Grant!?!). Uma Thurman should have made an excellent Ms. Peel but somehow she looked like a teenager. Sean Connery agreed to play the villain but must have wondered why he did so.The failure of the film presumably ends the saga, leaving us with the tapes and DVDs of the old series to remember it by. I think the 1965-66 season is the really classic period of the Avengers, especially about the first 20 episodes. The second Rigg series and the Thorson series are also very entertaining. The Blackman shows are really a different show, but good in their own way. Maybe someday we can see the Hendry shows. The revival attempts since the heyday were best forgotten.