The Avengers : Series 5 : The Living Dead : trivia

2:45 - It's the same graveyard set as From Venus with Love - there's even the headless angel.
5:45 - Steed tells Emma the ghost was considered to be that of Montague Staplow, 6th Duke of Benedict, who died in 1698.
5:54 - Rupert Staplow's gravestone does not mark a grave, it's a memorial to the men trapped in the Benedict Mine Disaster.
6:53/25:33/32:59/47:09 - Stock footage of a coal mine is used for a lot of establishing shots.
8:38/15:19/19:14 - Mandy Mackay has raided Mrs Peel's wardrobe (or visited the op shop near Highpoint 2) - she's seen (8:38 and 19:14) wearing her black leather jacket (as seen in The Cybernauts) and (15:19) her "Chemin" black and white fur coat (as seen in The Thirteenth Hole) from Series 4.
10:45 - When asked if he's seen the sign reading "Keep out" Steed replies, "Yes! Very bright, clear lettering, easy to read. I'd have preferred a 4 point Doric myself but otherwise an excellent sign". 4 point is very small type, that you might find used for legal disclaimers.
13:34 - The sun tan lotion used by the troglodytes is manufactured by the unlikely sounding McC.T.Ltd. There's not that much sunlight in Scotland, as Little Britain likes to remind us.
22:19 - It's broad daylight as Mandy runs from the chapel, isn't it supposed to be the evening?
23:22 - Mandy spills some brandy on herself.
29:44 et passim. - The guards' costumes (at least, the helmets) are left overs from "Fahrenheit 451".
34:50 - Julian Glover wrongly calls the publican 'Hopper' when he confronts him at the minehead.
43:07 - Cyd Child does the stunt where she overpowers the guard and spins him around on her shoulders.
43:54 - the spot lighting John Cater's face sneaks into shot at the bottom righthand corner. John stares at it briefly at 43:56, he knows it's in shot.
45:52 - Steed clearly failed Classics at Eton; he claims 'exit' is from the Greek 'exodus' when any schoolboy (except Brian Clemens, I presume) knows it's the third person present indicative of 'exire' in Latin (i.e. he/she/it goes out).
The underground city looks like a leftover from "The Shape of Things to Come" - the use of backdrops is subtly done and it looks absolutely enormous.
Running time: 49'19"

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.

Related websites

Support this site

Share this site

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

Episode 7 - The Living Dead

continuity and trivia