Mon 3 Aug 2015
THE AVENGERS BEFORE DIANA RIGG – PART TWO: MRS. CATHERINE GALE, by Michel Shonk.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[16] Comments
PART TWO: MRS. CATHERINE GALE
by Michael Shonk.
THE AVENGERS, Seasons 2-3. ABC, (Associated British Corporation) Production for ITV, 1962-63. Cast: Patrick Macnee as John Steed and Honor Blackman as Mrs. Catherine Gale. Produced by Leonard White (Season 2), John Bryce (Seasons 2 and 3). Theme composed and performed by Johnny Dankworth.
PART ONE (THE BEGINNINGS) can be read here.
When we last left The Avengers we had looked at the first two seasons (or as the British say “seriesâ€) and all of John Steed’s closest partners except one, Mrs. Catherine Gale played by Honor Blackman.
Originally Steed’s next main partner after Ian Hendry (Dr. David Keel) left the series at the end of Season One was to be a man named Charlie Gale. Then ABC Production executive Sydney Newman decided to make him a woman: Mrs. Catherine Gale.
According to producer Leonard White, in his book Armchair Theatre – The Lost Years (Kelly Publications, 2003), writer Doreen Montgomery was brought in to help with developing White’s idea of a woman playing a male role. She did not last long writing for the series but helped establish the character Cathy Gale. Her only The Avengers script credit is for the episode “Warlock.†The episode was originally planned to introduce Cathy Gale to the audience but some scenes needed to be reshot and that pushed its air-date back.
Despite Season Two starting to air episodes in May 1962, Honor Blackman was not cast as Cathy Gale until June 1962. Sydney Newman did not believe Blackman could handle the role. After shooting with Blackman began, Newman called her into his office and ordered her to play the part with less smiling and more seriousness or she would be fired. Blackman usually followed that bad advice, but one wonders how more popular Gale and Blackman would have become if they had let the character lighten up a little.
Mrs. Catherine Gale was an intelligent widow, a scholar, and someone who had survived living in adventurous Africa. She would prove to be a type of female hero TV audiences had rarely seen before. Played by the sexy Honor Blackman, Gale feared no man including Steed, as we can see in the Season Two’s episode below:
First a note about the YouTube videos used here. Each is the best available at the moment, but the videos are marred by the presence of a iris-shaped light in the center of the picture that was added by whoever downloaded these episodes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmo-qOu8Fds
“Propellant 23.†Teleplay by Jon Manchip White. Directed by Jonathan Alwyn. Produced by Leonard White. Guest Cast: Justine Lord, Catherine Woodville, Geoffrey Palmer and Ralph Nossek. *** A courier is set to hand over a top-secret package to Steed but is killed before Steed gets the item. The problem is Steed does not know what the package is or what it looks like.
Baddies are everywhere in this above average Cold war thriller. Blackman and Macnee are fun to watch and while this was an episode before Blackman donned the black leather outfit it offers a nice scene where she uses the gun in her thigh holster. The episode’s greatest flaw was the low production values that was common for 1962.
By Season Three, The Avengers was a major hit in United Kingdom and getting attention beyond the British TV viewer but still had yet to reach America. The series was still limited by its low production values and being videotaped live in black and white. The tone of the series was still dark and hardboiled, but the characters started to get more offbeat and the series focused on the engaging chemistry between Macnee and Blackman.
It was the 60s London and the city was the center of a fashion revolution. The time was right for Cathy Gale and for her “Kinky Boots†…
… and fondness for black leather. Audiences loved Gale and Steed and especially what they were wearing as they beat up the bad guys.
But this attention to a TV series because of its fashion was not by design, just a lucky by-product from the decision to feature more hand-to-hand combat such as Judo. It was impractical for Gale to perform the martial arts while wearing a dress, and normal slacks could not withstand the stress (as learned during shooting), so much to the audience’s delight black leather outfits were adopted.
The third season continued to push the naughty boundaries of British TV in 1963. With original bosses network executive Sydney Newman and producer Leonard White gone, John Bryce would produce the third season.
John Bryce was one of the series’ original story editors and had been involved in the group that created the series. In the middle of the second season he became the series producer and stayed until the end of Season Three. He returned to the series when Clemens and Albert Fennell left at the end of season six. Unable to reproduce the magic Clemens had with The Avengers, Bryce was fired after three episodes and a reluctant Clemens and Fennell were begged back.
In the third season Gale became Steed’s only partner as she had earned the respect of Steed and his superiors (and approval of the viewers). Steed was becoming more appealing and stylish. Gone was the callous Steed who thought nothing about tossing an inexperienced Venus into situations she might not survive. Steed may have kept secrets from Cathy but he cared about her, and Cathy cared and trusted him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg122j7ojFg
“The Outside-In Man.†Written by Philip Chambers. Directed by Jonathan Alwyn. Produced by John Bryce. Guest Cast: Ronald Rudd, James Maxwell, and Beryl Baxter. *** A leader of a developing country is visiting England to sign an arms deal. Five years earlier the British government had tried to kill him and thought both of its agents had been killed in the attempt. Now one of the agents turns up alive and wants to finish his assignment.
A good hardboiled spy thriller with a dark and true view of politics in the Cold War that takes for granted that the British government assassinated political opponents in foreign countries.
The series popularity was growing and was attracting attention worldwide including America. Then Honor Blackman quit the series, getting the role of Pussy Galore for the James Bond film Goldfinger. Without a female star ABC shut down production while considering what to do next.
Six months later ABC turned over The Avengers to Telemen Limited, headed by Julian Wintle. Wintle would hire Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens to produce Season Four. This would not be Brian Clemens first involvement with the series. Not only did he write five episodes in the third season, he wrote two episodes for Season One. He was among the group lead by network executive Sydney Newman and producer Leonard White who were involved in the creation of the series. Clemens made not have created The Avengers, but he made so many important changes in Season Four that perhaps we should give him a “developed by†credit.
Beyond a new partner for Steed, other changes were made that would improve the series in Season Four such as replacing live on videotape with film and eventually black and white with color. The creative staff lead by Clemens would replace the serious hardboiled tone for a wacky playfulness. The character Steed would turn into a delightful wink at the American’s British male stereotype. Steed’s new partner was Mrs. Emma Peel played by Elizabeth Shepherd. But before Season Four would air, one more change would be made, a casting change that took a hit British TV series and made it a television icon that is still remembered today.
SOURCES:
Websites:
The Avengers Forever: http://theavengers.tv/forever
Avengers Declassified: http://declassified.theavengers.tv/introduction.htm
Books:
The Strange Case of the Missing Episodes – The Lost Stories of THE AVENGERS Series 1 by Richard McGinlay, Alan Hayes and Alys Hayes (Hidden Tiger, 2013).
With Umbrella, Scotch and Cigarettes – An Unauthorized Guide to The Avengers Series 1 by Richard McGinlay and Alan Hayes (Hidden Tiger, 2014).
August 3rd, 2015 at 4:55 pm
I’m not sure Blackman’s serious demeanor didn’t get her the part of Pussy Galore, who is pretty serious herself. It is hard to argue with the success of the series once she signed on in any case.
Still no one can deny that Diana Rigg brought a much needed change of tone to the series and provided the ideal balance for McNee’s John Steed.
August 3rd, 2015 at 7:57 pm
I recommend anyone interested in the series visit that website Avengers Forever (see link above). One of the things it discussed there was the change in Steed in the fourth (Peel) season. Clemens knew the series had been picked up in America and designed Steed to meet the idea of what American thought was a typical Englishman.
While the third season offered better than expected for its era hardboiled Cold War thrillers, it lacked the magic of the two seasons to follow.
In my opinion, season three is the best the non-Diana Rigg THE AVENGERS got.
August 4th, 2015 at 1:38 am
Like I’ve said, season 3 is pretty much the point where THE AVENGERS becomes the series that we know today. It does display the extraordinary variety of styles on display (THE CHARMERS and DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU, both by Clemens, are respectively wacky and creepy). It feels as if they decided to be solidly entertaining rather than simply realistic.
Whilst the Rigg era does contain some of the best episodes of the show, it also contains some real plodders, but no-one ever remembers them. Something like DEATH’S DOOR is as good as the show ever got, but I would take one of the better Thorson episodes over HOW TO SUCCEED…AT MURDER any time.
There’s still a lot of debate over the events of the end of the Rigg era of the show. Clemens does make it clear, though, that he and Fennell were sacked because ABC wanted more control over the show. They ended up hiring them back because Bryce was unable to keep up the pace of making a film series, and had fallen terribly behind schedule.
August 4th, 2015 at 2:24 am
Clemens had mixed feelings about returning for season six. He especially regretted not changing the character of Tara King immediately. It would be Clemens involvement in every different form of THE AVENGERS from Season One to THE NEW AVENGERS that discounts how much of his “genius” was responsible for the success of Season 4 and 5. He made changes that was the right ones at the right time. But it was Diana Rigg’s actor choices for the character of Emma Peel that made the series a TV icon.
August 4th, 2015 at 2:33 pm
Well, I suspect that we’re never going to see exactly eye-to-eye on this, but I still hold that Brian Clemen’s genius (no inverted commas) played a huge part in making the show the success that it was. He really achieved the ideal casting with Rigg, and she absolutely caught the tone that he wanted. It’s the perfect marriage of production team and actress.
Clemens scripts for the previous shows are excellent, but his vision for how the show worked can really be seen in season 4 and 5 and, yes, six. As for THE NEW AVENGERS, it was a huge success in the UK and abroad, a big ratings and critical success, only cut short when he could not find the enormous financial backing that it needed. On top of this he achieved a huge popular success with THE PROFESSIONALS. He really wasn’t some hack writer/producer hanging on the tails of Diana Rigg. In the end, though, it is perhaps pointless to argue whose contribution was the greater. Let’s just appreciate what we have.
August 4th, 2015 at 3:48 pm
5. BRADSTREET, the comment section is made for arguments, that’s half the fun.
I like Clemens as a writer/producer but while he was a talented successful writer he remains overrated today, especially for THE AVENGERS.
As you might have noticed I watch a great deal of British TV, new and old. My favorite British TV writer was Dennis Spooner and my favorite British TV series remains DEPARTMENT S, but even Spooner was human (I find THE CHAMPIONS almost unwatchable).
During the 50s and 60s the British had a different way of creating series. Shows such as DOCTOR WHO and THE AVENGERS were created by committee. It is hard to understand how successful series came out of such a system. Today we think of Clemens creating the series, he didn’t.
We admire Clemens for the changes he made in Season Four and ignore the mistakes he made in Season Six and with THE NEW AVENGERS.
As for THE NEW AVENGERS, I agree with Patrick Macnee that in an interview with “Starlog” magazine said, “I wish I hadn’t done it now. I don’t like THE NEW AVENGERS. I think it was bad and ordinary and unimaginative and not interesting.”
Of course Macnee was probably influence by the problem with the series was Steed didn’t fit in. It would have been a better series with just Gambit and Purdey, but that series never would have been made.
In favor of Clemens as far as THE NEW AVENGERS, he didn’t want Steed in it. He wanted Purdey and Gambit in a series aimed at Middle-America, a TV buddy cop-like series. The investors demanded Steed for good reason, it wasn’t THE AVENGERS without Steed.
I continue to believe Clemens was one of the best TV writer-producers of his era and location. But if we are to credit anyone for the series status in TV history it isn’t a writer or an actor but to the unexplainable magic that occasionally happens when a TV series or movie has everything come together at the same moment.
As an reward to Clemens fans who made it this far, here is a link to Brian Clemens bio at Avengers Forever…
http://theavengers.tv/forever/bio-clemens.htm
August 4th, 2015 at 7:28 pm
Oh, I love DEPARTMENT S (but on the other hand I also love THE NEW AVENGERS and THE CHAMPIONS…OOOOPS!) There are about three episodes of TNA where Steed is obviously sidelined, but after pressure from Macnee they increased his role to the point where he plays an equal slice of the action, and it works very well. I know that he expressed his dislike for the show, but I have read interviews where he said that he loved doing the show, that he hated doing the show, that he should have been in it more, that he should have been in it less…He really wasn’t the most consistent interviewee.
What annoys me about Dennis Spooner is that he isn’t mentioned in the same breath as Teleivision writers like Dennis Potter. He could write straightforward adventure stories, but he could also do stuff like the first episode of JASON KING, the story WANNA BUY A TELEVISION SERIES? It is one of the cleverest parodies of generic TV that I’ve ever seen, operating on several narrative levels at once, like the best of Tom Stoppard. British TV would be immeasurably poorer without him. Slightly off-topic, but which episode of DEPARTMENT S is your favourite?
What I find very striking is how few writers regularly wrote for the ITC shows and THE AVENGERS. Clemens, Spooner, Donald James, Philip Broadley, Tony Williamson, Gerald Kelsey and so on. They contributed an awful lot to the history of television, but they’re forgotten by most viewers and critics.
August 4th, 2015 at 9:22 pm
I enjoy all the DEPARTMENT S equally. Like so much of British TV in 60s and early 70s, no one was afraid of going over the top and the explanations for the bizarre crimes were always fun and believable.
The problem I had with THE CHAMPIONS is whenever they would get in a hopeless sure death spot they come up with some (at times just discovered) superpower, frustratingly too convenient and eliminated any sense of tension and believability.
In ADAM ADAMANT LIVES special “This Man Is the One” Brian Clemens noted how a handful of writers wrote for everything. The link to the special is still good over at my review of ADAM ADAMANT LIVES.
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=32702
The JASON KING episode you mentioned is a favorite of mine as well. Only the British at the time could have written an action series episode that was nothing more than a writer’s pitch to a TV producer.
I still need to watch THE AVENGERS Season One episode “Girl On the Trapeze” – Spooner wrote it.
Dennis Potter deserves his fame but while his best work is SINGING DETECTIVE and PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, he reused that gimmick too much. It is sad than genre fiction and comedy are so unfairly judged by critics with rose-colored glasses on for literature such as WEDNESDAY PLAYS.
Sixties TV from Britain and America remains my favorite decade of television, from MR. ROSE to THE PRISONER, from DANGER MAN to SPYDER’S WEB (which I have seen only one of). In America, DANTE and T.H.E. CAT. All great stuff.
August 5th, 2015 at 5:51 pm
I don’t know if you’ve got the box set (I did, but it had so many faults that I had to return it)but you can see the Spooner episode on Youtube. It’s a very clear print.
At the moment I seem to be living, TV wise, in the 60s/70s…THE MAN IN ROOM 17, THE WILDE ALLIANCE, THE SAINT so I’m feeling quite groovy. Just recently I started to look at a show that I’ve really not seen since I was a kid…THE BARON. Only watched a few so far, but I’m quite enjoying it. It feels a bit too much like THE SAINT (MARK 2) and Steve Forrest is a bit stiff and uncharismatic, but it’s solid ITC stuff and contains all the usual suspects (Spooner, Clemens, Nation…)
Potter was a case of someone who was unlucky enough to receive massive praise early on his career, and ended up endlessly repeating himself in order to keep getting that praise. He did a TV play back in the mid-’70s called BLUE REMEMBERED HILLS which I think was one of the best things that he ever did. It was about a group of kids in the mid 1940s and how they spend their days. What made it especially effective was the way that all of the children were played by actors in their 30s/40s. It removed all of the usual sentimentality connected with plays about childhood and showed the characters as brutal and stupid.
If you can find the DVD of SPYDERS WEB, it’s well worth getting. Very very weird, but extremely entertaining.
August 5th, 2015 at 6:47 pm
The Baron played fast and loose with John Creasey with John Mannering losing wife Lorna and becoming an American oil baron rather than a British jewel thief. Quinns the auction house is still where he operates from, but the set up is much different from the books.
Sue Lloyd was his attractive assistant, but Forest, a solid if stolid actor, was no Roger Moore in the lead despite good scripts and some imagination. For dabblers there are episodes on YouTube.
No question there were some fine talents in England in the era working in television though.
August 5th, 2015 at 7:25 pm
YouTube is amazing for British shows. You can watch shows such as ADAM ADAMANT LIVES and THE AVENGERS. I have watched in the past MAN IN A SUITCASE. While I needed the collector market to get MAN IN ROOM 17, MR. ROSE, and CORRIDOR PEOPLE, you can currently see these British classics here on U.S. YouTube.
WILDE ALLIANCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJeMJVzLrtk
THE BARON (s1e2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vews4V9oeL0
CALLAN (S1E6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZAspYbwtpY
DANGER MAN (S1e1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqUrcvyKLBE
DEPARTMENT S (S1e1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqzx8QihaO8
PUBLIC EYE (S4e1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXPpgX4cWcs
RANDALL AND HOPKIRK (deceased) the original version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kG9QAZA87o
BLUE REMEMBERED HILLS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEuOO5HYmmA
The early THE SAINT is available for free to watch at Shout Factory streaming service
https://www.shoutfactory.com/tv/tv-action-adventure
I belong to one private YouTube channel where I can watch HUMAN JUNGLE, THE SENTIMENTAL AGENT, STRANGE REPORT, MAIN CHANCE, MIND OF MR. JG REEDER, SERGEANT CORK and many more
Finally, for Clemens fans, a 1995 series created by Brian Clemens is on YouTube at the moment.
BUGS “Out of the Hive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzWfoh9EUx0
Don’t forget to click on the subscribe button under the left corner of the video. It will take you to the channel where you will find other choices, usually more episodes for the series.
August 5th, 2015 at 7:35 pm
Comment 11 may break the site which is not fond of too many links in comments. I left ten links to British series including THE BARON.
BRADSTREET I hope the links work for you overseas.
As all us YouTube junkies know the site is addictive. It does not replace an official DVD but at times is exactly what you would have got from the collector’s market. YouTube suppliers can screw up the film picture ratio when downloading. Many will have the sides of the picture cropped. That was the reason I used the videos with the light rather than others.
August 5th, 2015 at 7:55 pm
You were right about all those links, Michael. I had to approve your comment manually before it would show up. Thanks for taking the time to list them all. There are some series there I have never heard of!
August 5th, 2015 at 8:07 pm
One of my favorite websites is Double O Section and he noted ITV loved The Saint formula…feature a _____ who gets involved in espionage and adventures. SENTIMENTAL AGENT was an import/export agent. In THE BARON he was an antiques dealer.
August 7th, 2015 at 1:03 am
Michael: The links work fine, thanks. You could just end up watching Youtube from morning till night if you weren’t careful. I don’t suppose that the creators of the site had this in mind when they designed it, but it really has turned into a cult TV resource. As a kid, the idea that you could be a click away from watching the original TV broadcasts of QUATERMASS II would have seemed like, well, science-fiction. But it’s there, amongst so much else. It’s wonderful!
August 7th, 2015 at 11:57 pm
BRADSTREET we are lucky. In 1964 I was ten years old and lived in a College town with only two TV stations. There is so much from this era I can now watch that was unavailable to me back then.