Episode 8 - The Hidden Tiger

continuity and trivia

1. 5:19 - "We'll check around the grounds" Really? It's Taylor & Child who do the walking around. Cyd's stocking are a completely different colour to Diana's.
2. 7:37/7:42 - The footage of the attacking lion (7:17) is taken from the Patrick McGoohan film "Nor the Moon by Night".
3. 8:08 (7:45) -
   
   While at Nesbitt's, Steed crosses the room followed by Nesbitt, and the shadow of the boom microphone dances across his forehead.
4. 9:12 - As the camera pans across, following Peters, you can see a glimpse of the studio ceiling and lighting gantry in the top left corner. It would have been considered to be outside the scan area for Sixties television sets but even so there's a clear corner in the "sky" above the shed in the corner.
5. 13:35 (13:13) -
   
   When Erskine is attacked outside the barn, we get a low angle view - to represent the cat's POV - unfortunately, you can also see the studio ceiling.
6. 14:49 - They've used the American spelling of "pasteurized" on the milk can.
7. 17:02 - Product placement for Moët et Chandon.
8. 23:00-23:25 - Going through the gates of PURRR are a lot of mokes - actually, it's four, which go through the gate three times, giving the impression that 10 mokes had entered. (all 4; then 2 in front of Steed and 2 behind as he stops at the gate; then we cut to Steed, with all four queued up behind him again).
9. 23:28 - The first cat-shaped sign is followed by a red and then a yellow one in the long shot, but we never see them again after the close-up.
10. 25:10 - Cheshire is mourning the passing of "Prince Courtney of Chippenham" when Steed arrives.
11. 25:27 - Cheshire bids adieu to Prince Courtney by saying, "Farewell, faithful, fair and fulsome feline friend!"
    Fulsome? The word used to be a positive adjective but these days it suggests "overweight" or "overfed" or, worse, "offensive" or "excessive". Perhaps Prince Courtney was a fat cat.
12. 26:00-26:20 - Distinct innuendo from Cheshire. He asks Steed, "The name of your beloved pussy?" Steed looks blank then replaes, "Oh, err, Emma".
    A moment later Cheshire observes, "And what a joy for you it must be when she's curled up in your lap." to which Steed replies, "Well, I've never thought of it like that."
13. 26:28 - Cheshire offers Steed a drink - of milk! : "Homogenised, pasteurised, full cream, dairy special or perhaps you prefer a short?"
14. 26:43 - When Cheshire has a drink of milk, the cat he's holding tries to drink it so Angora quickly takes the cat off him.
15. 30:44-31:20 - Contrary to what you might have read elsewhere, the is no continuity error when Cheshire's playing with the Identi-Cat system - true, he replaces the chin, which is the top sheet, with another. However, when Mrs Peel says the eyes are wrong, he places another sheet over the top (31:14) - on top of the chin and smaller eyes below [see enlargement].
16. 31:41 - Emma tells Cheshire her "Little John" is "very grumpy before his first glass of champagne".
17. 32:50 - Diana Rigg must be allergic to cats, her eyes are all puffed up as they walk down the hallway.
18. 33:50 - Angora is wearing Mrs Peel's pink/red and black woolen coat from The Cybernauts
19. 35:14 - Left:Peters is talking to Angora and goes to pour himself a glass of milk, only to find it almost full already, so he just tops it up and drinks. Must have required a couple of takes for that one. (34:52)
20. 41:17 - Rocky Taylor stands in for Macnee again, he runs for the wall and leaps over it.
21. 41:42 - Right:The view from the peephole that we see from Steed's point of view is impossible - he's in a side room and yet he can see straight down the middle of the hallway. (41:16)
22. 42:21 - there's a black spot on the film almost dead centre as Cheshire attacks Steed.
23. 44:30-44:45 - Cyd Child does a lot of the running around in the dark.
24. 44:55 - The cat Cheshire gave Mrs Peel and which escapes from her car (44:55) to the van clearly walks across the middle of the hallway (45:40) when the cats are released by the villains, but reappears in the van (46:24) in the next scene, scaring Dr Manx into crashing the vehicle.

    In Emma's arms	...in the hall	...in the van
    ©1961-9 CANAL+IMAGE UK Ltd All Rights Reserved

25. 45:51 - When Emma arrives to saves Steed she purrs, "Pussies Galore!" after running down the hallway full of cats.
26. 46:51/47:16 - Rocky Taylor & Cyd Child do most of the running around in the dark to reach and then leave the crashed van.
27. 47:00 - When Dr Manx falls out of the cab you can just see the head of a crew member at the bottom of the screen, waiting to catch him.
28. Running time: 49'06"

Cast notes

1. Gabrielle Drake (Angora) went on to star as Lt. Gay Ellis in the TV series UFO. She is also the sister of the tragic musician Nick Drake.
   
2. Several actors are uncredited - the undertaker and pallbearers who leave PURRR with a cat-sized coffin when Steed arrives. Anyone know them? The undertaker also appeared as the gas-mask wearing guard in The Living Dead.

   Undertaker	Pallbearer	Pallbearer

3. There are also the hearse driver and four milk float drivers, but they're too indistinct to be recognisable.