The Avengers : Series 5 : The Winged Avenger : trivia

4:49 - Smirnoff and Johnny Walker product placement.
2:32/8:35/43:48 - Every time the Avenger climbs a wall, we see his claws going up notched stone or concrete blocks, despite the fact that no building he ever climbs resembles them. Anyway, why is he using the claws when he could just walk up the wall?
6:05 - A major continuity error in the intro! (see above) The entirety of the canvas is in full view at all times - even just at the point where Mrs Peel starts in amazement - the crimson MRS PEEL is not on the corner of the canvas until after Steed walks around the back, wiping his brush.
7:30 - Steed and Mrs Peel consult an illustrated "Birds of the World".
8:20 - How is the The Winged Avenger parked in some woods near Simon Roberts & Son?
11:18 - Grundig product placement.
14:16 - Overdub, fluffed line, or melodrama?
Sir Lexius is having tea with Emma and says "...tried to [gap] do me out of the profits!" Jenna Clayton thinks he said something else, I think he paused for effect (or maybe stumbled over his lines).
15:14-15:30 - the bird in the air is different to the bird on the wrist.
15:45 - Arnie Packer's telephone number (as dialled by Tay Ling) is 463-337.
18:16 - Cyd Child leaps over the hedge.... and walks through the garden (19:08).
23:50 - Professor Poole's house is the same as Brigadier Whitehead's from From Venus with Love.
24:01 - Cyd Child and Rocky Taylor do the stair-climbing duties.
24:32 - Diana Rigg makes the unfortunate choice of a white bra under a black knitted rollneck.
25:34 - The (prop) staircase in Poole's mansion shakes terribly whenever anyone's on it; when Steed and Emma follow Poole up them, It looks as though the whole thing will collapse beneath them!
27:47 - Emma spots an article about E.J. Dumayn in the Wednesday 30 November 1966 edition of "The Daily Mail"
28:57 - When Dumayne is killed, not only does he obviously catch himself and cushion his fall, but he also visibly inhales and exhales one time after he lands!
32:18 - The Lotus headlights fail to close, and it's Cyd (or maybe Billy!) who gets out.
33:14 - Why would Poole have rows of book cover Parlimentary debates?
33:50 and elsewhere - How do Poole, Emma and The Winged Avenger keep their bodies horizontal while climbing up the walls? They're somehow managing it almost entirely through the use of their ankle muscles!
38:00 - Steed and Emma fail to realize that finding the published The Winged Avenger comic with the picture of Dumayne's body makes Packer at least a co-conspirator; they wonder aloud whether Packer or Stanton - or both - is the Winged Avenger.
42:10 - more stair-climbing duties for Cyd Child.
42:28 - Steed's near-side headlight still doesn't work.
42:29 - The perennial problem of colour-shift appears when Stanton & Steed are in the Bentley with the projected background of moving scenery.
43:00-44:38 - When chasing Emma, The Winged Avenger climbs out the second story window, climbs up at least one story, then crashes through the window onto... the second story!
©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE
44:30 - Just before Stanton and Steed arrive at Poole's house, Steed asks Stanton 'How are we doing?' Stanton replies 'Not too good!' and shows Steed a drawing, which in the longshot is nothing like the drawing of the Winged Avenger at the window that we are given as the close up.
46:08 - During the fight with Emma, just after scratching the table, one of the hooks from the right claw falls off the Winged Avenger's costume - and it falls up to the ceiling!
46:32- - During the final fight scene, when Steed and Stanton break in, Emma and the Winged Avenger are 5 or 6 feet above them; but when Steed whacks him with the signs, he's is little more than one foot above him!
47:36 - The bird sculpture from Art Incorporated is in Mrs Peel's living room.
Running time: 49'23"

A note on the timecodes
Where I have listed two sets of timecodes, the first is from the 2009-11 Optimum Releasing/Studio Canal DVD sets, any other timecodes are from the A&E and Contender DVD sets from a decade beforehand.
The new releases have been 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).
These 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 runnning 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). Let's hope the much-rumoured bluray release will revert to native 24fps with soft telecine so we won't have these problems again.

Cast notes

Ann Sydney was Miss World 1964 and a pop star of the time, often appearing on Shindig (in much the same way, Dangerman had a guest actor in Patsy Ann Noble for the episode "Not So Jolly Roger").
John Garrie was obviously thought to look Asian to casting agents of the time - he turns up in the final Dangerman production Koroshi as a Japanese character.

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The Episode Guide to Series 5 (1967) of The Avengers

Episode 6 - The Winged Avenger

continuity and trivia

Cast notes