Episode 21 - A Touch of Brimstone

Episode Rating

The Cars

Who's Killing Whom?

Victim	Killer	Method	click a name to see the face
VIP	Willy Frant V*	electrocution
Lord Darcy	Willy Frant V*	trapdoor into river
John Cartney V*	John Cartney V* & Emma	trapdoor into river (accidental)

continuity and trivia

1. 1:00 - Is Cartney house using some of the same sets as Castle De'ath? Some of those doors look familiar.
2. 1:34 - Cartney certainly eats lively chocolates! The scene has been recut in the editing room, but this means we see the chocolates on the arm of the chair (1:34) before he picks them out of the box (starting at 1:51).
3. Steed has a television in his car!
4. 8:58 - Steed casually pours himself a sherry while searching Darcy's flat.
5. 21:53/22:28 - Steed's patent hangover cure, which he calls "National Anthem" comprises two eggs, salt and worcester sauce.

6. 23:00 - Diana Rigg is enjoying herself and cheering on the fighters in the long shots, but in the closeups she's looking pensive.
7. 37:49 - The old standby prop, the cast-iron staircase is put to use once again.
8. 38:16/39:30 - Emma turns tail and hears for the staircase when the box is opened to reveal TNT inside the fireworks boxes - but there's no way she could have seen that from where she was.
9. 40:34-36 - One of the extras is sitting by herself and the next second there's a close-up of her in an embrace with one of the revellers. At 40:49, she's on her own again as Mrs Peel is presented.
10. 42:22/43:53 - They couldn't have sex scenes on Sixties television, but we come close here. Cartney says Mrs Peel is theirs, to de with as they will. The men rush her and carry her around the room with the women throwing petals over her, before descending the stairs. At that point the camera cuts back to Mrs Peel's snake, no longer flaccid in her hands but now before the fire, it's long neck rearing up and erect. Mrs Peel's snake seems to... uh... grow from a reasonably sized python when she's holding it to a much larger constrictor when it's crawling around the mantel. Paging Dr Freud!
11. 47:06 - There's a rather obvious backdrop for the catacombs scene.
12. 47:15 - There are streaks down the right-hand side of the film.
13. 47:44- The whipping scene was supposedly too much for the American network (Mrs Peel is lashed 12 times by Cartney), so it was censored. The story goes that network executives used to show the full scene to their friends and colleagues at the Christmas party.
14. Running time: 49'32"

Cast notes

1. Carol Cleveland will be familiar to Monty Python fans - she was a regular of the ensemble.
2. Robert Cawdron returns as the fake policeman in Murdersville.
3. Colin Jeavons returns as the comic book writer Stanton in The Winged Avenger.
4. Peter Wyngarde returns gloriously as Stewart Kirby in Epic (as well as in Jason King and Department S). Michael Latimer and Bill Wallis both return in The Positive-Negative Man (as the villainous Peter Haworth and the ill-fated Dr Charles Grey respectively)
5. Jeremy Young is the double agent Burton in The Forget-Me-Knot and the Russian agent Chislenko in Gnaws.
6. Bill Reed is another notable stuntman who's being throwing himself off buildings for years, here he stacks explosives in the cellar - he is also the hooded man who fights little Art Thomas.
7. The man I've described as a Beaky Libertine appears in a multitude of episodes, as well as in Dangerman and The Champions.
8. 

   We don't get to see much of Alf Joint in this episode - he's the sheik's security guard (far right). Interested viewers can see more of him as Cosher Klaus in Legacy of Death or as the thug who jumps James Bond and winds up electrified in a bathtub at the beginning of Goldfinger (near right).