Series 5 — Episode 9
The Correct Way To Kill
by Brian Clemens
Directed by Charles Crichton
Steed changes partners -
Emma joins the enemy
Production No E.66.6.9
Production completed: January 23 1967. First transmission: March 8 1967.
Regional broadcasts
Broadcaster | Date | Time |
---|---|---|
Rediffusion London | 10/03/1967 | 8:00pm |
ABC Midlands | 11/03/1967 | 9:10pm |
ABC North | 11/03/1967 | 9:10pm |
Anglia Television | 10/03/1967 | 8:00pm |
Border Television | 12/03/1967 | 8:10pm |
Channel Television | 10/03/1967 | 8:00pm |
Grampian Television | 17/01/1968 | 8:00pm |
Southern Television | 8/03/1967 | 8:00pm |
Scottish Television | 11/03/1967 | 9:10pm |
Tyne Tees Television | 8/03/1967 | 8:00pm |
Ulster Television | 25/01/1968 | 9:00pm |
Westward Television | 10/03/1967 | 8:00pm |
Television Wales & West | 10/03/1967 | 8:00pm |
TV Times listing
9.10 The Avengers
starring
Patrick Macnee
as John Steed
and
Diana Rigg
as Emma Peel
in
The Correct Way to Kill
By Brian Clemens
In which Steed changes partners — and Emma joins the enemy … !
Cast also includes
Olga | Anna Quayle |
Nutski | Michael Gough |
Ivan | Philip Madoc |
Ponsonby | Terence Alexander |
Percy | Peter Barkworth |
Algy | Graham Armitage |
Merryweather | Timothy Bateson |
Hilda | Joanna Jones |
Winters | Edwin Apps |
Groski | John G. Heller |
Designed by Robert Jones
Music by Laurie Johnson
Directed by Charles Crichton
Produced by Albert Fennell
and Brian Clemens
Executive producer Julian Wintle
ABC Weekend Network Production
International broadcasts
Broadcaster | Date | Time |
---|---|---|
ABN2 Sydney, Australia | 30/05/1967 | 8:00pm |
ABV2 Melbourne, Australia | 29/05/1967 | 8:00pm |
ABC New York, USA | 24/03/1967 | 10:00pm |
ORTF2 France | 30/07/1968 | 8:30pm |
Suisse Romande, Switzerland | 1/07/1968 | 8:40pm |
French title | Meutre distingué | |
ZDF Germany | 10/10/1967 | 9:15pm |
German title | Kennen sie Snob? | |
KRO Netherlands | 7/10/1969 | 9:45pm |
Dutch title | Hoe wordt ik een snob? | |
Svizzera Italiana | 14/12/1973 | 9:00pm |
Italian title | un modo corretto di uccidere | |
Spain | 6/11/1967 | 4:00pm |
Spanish title | La forma correcta de matar |
Episode Rating
Subject | 0–5 |
---|---|
Direction | 3 stars |
Music | 3 stars |
Humour | 4 stars |
Intro/tag | 4 stars |
Mastermind | 3½ stars |
Plot | 3½ stars |
Emma | 3½ stars |
Set Design | 1½ stars |
Overall (0–10) |
7 stars |
A worthy effort which doesn’t quite make it to the top. Great dialogue and performances, but the story isn’t quite daft enough to make a truly great Avengers episode.
A couple of dapper city gents meet a foreign agent and
dispatch him coldly, if politely.
Mrs. Peel’s is summoned by a doctored newspaper headline -
Steed needs her to help him discover who’s killing enemy
agents.
When Ivan, the enemy’s top man tries to kill Steed, thinking
he was behind it, they team up to discover the third party.
Steed pairs up with Olga and Emma goes with Ivan to
investigate who is the real killer of the agents. Both sides
are being double-crossed by Nutski, Olga’s employer, who has
set up a private army masquerading as a school for gentlemen.
Following crates of umbrella and bowlers, Olga and Steed catch
up to the gang, but are discovered. Emma to the rescue with
her trusty foil, and a fencing bout finds Emma and Olga the
victors, Nutski impaled on a sword.
Emma finds Steed wearing a Cossack hat the next morning at
breakfast, the souvenir of a date with Olga.
The Cars
Marque/Model | Colour | Number Plate |
---|---|---|
Citroën ID 19 (’57–61 model) {left hand drive} |
yellow | 70 BLX |
Bedford CAS 10/12cwt Mk2 1963 van | dark blue | 197 GLK |
Mini | dark blue | HJB 830D KLM 820C? |
Who’s Killing Whom?
Victim | Killer | Method |
---|---|---|
Boris Groski | Algy & Percy V* | pistols |
Stanislaus Arkadi | Algy & Percy V* | ? |
Zoric | Algy & Percy V* | dagger |
Ivan Peppitoperoff | Algy & Percy V* | ? |
Dr. Merryweather | Algy & Percy? V* | Stabbed with umbrella |
J.Nathan Winters | Algy & Percy? V* | Stabbed with umbrella |
Algernon Wynche (Algy) V* | Emma | Sword |
Mr. Percival (Percy) V* | Olga | Sword |
Nutski V* | Emma | Sword thrown at him. |
The Fashions
Continuity and trivia
- 1:40–4:25 — The joins in the prefab cobblestones are a bit obvious.
- 3:01 — Percy’s Luger has the breech open when he pulls it out, it wouldn’t have fired.
- 4:25 — Arkadi is played by the same actor - Romo Gorrara - who appears as the unnamed thug helping the First Assistant do away with Mrs. Rhodes in The £50,000 Breakfast. He appeared in everything made in Britain in the late 60s and 70s. Another regular stuntman, Peter Clay, plays Zoric.
- 5:55 — You hear the gunshot FX after Ivan drops his pistol.
- 5:56 — Philip Madoc is replaced by a stuntman vey adroitly for the tumble over the armchair.
- 8:50–8:55 — Product placement for vodka? I don’t recognise the brand.
- 13:41 — Steed introduces Emma to Ivan with the words “You haven’t met Mrs. Peel”, despite them meeting in the earlier scene (6:00 onwards). This may, of course, be another send up of proper English manners, à la the opening scene of the episode.
- 16:00 and throughout - Is Merryweather’s office the same set as Tom Savage’s studio in The Bird Who Knew Too Much?
- 16:40/23:15 — one of the studs of Mrs. Peel’s coat keeps popping open.
- 20:10–20:15 (19:48) - Steed and Olga pay a visit to J. Nathan Winters, and Steed asks to see some replacement handles for his umbrella. Winters doesn’t think it can be bettered and Steed explains, “it’s a little loose” when Winters draw the sword inside it out a bit. Winters then shows him a handle carved into the shape of a dog’s head, which Steed dismisses. Seconds later, Winters is holding several shillelagh handles, without moving a muscle!
- 26:55 — Steep quips, “Half an oaf is better than low bread” when Ponsonby remarks that if his deportment training is only somewhat successful he will have considered his work worthwhile.
- 33:27 — Olga is chloroformed by Percy after Merryweather refuses to do it.
- 34:15 — Percy quips, “No use struggling Miss Velowski, we’ve secured you with old school ties.” and Algy chips in with, “The bonds of the old school tie are well nigh impossible to break.” The ties, by the way, appear to be mostly Hertford College Oxford.
- 36:25 — Mr. Jones can’t get his sword back inside his umbrella.
- 37:33 — Steed pauses when removing the ties from Olga and notes, “It’s my old school tie” - the pale greenish-blue and dark grey of Eton.
- 39:35 — You can see the shadow of the boom microphone on the wall above Steed and Olga as they plan their escape.
- 39:40 — as Olga approaches the front of the stage you can glimpse the top of the set and the dark studio ceiling in the top left corner.
- 43:08–45:30 — obvious stunt doubles in much of the charm aschool sequences:
- 43:08 onwards - Rigg is replaced by Cyd Child for almost the entire sequence.
- 44:49 — Macnee and Gough - Steed tackles Nutski and disarms Ponsonby.
- 45:03 — Rigg, Barkworth and Armitage as they fence.
- 45:15 — Quayle is replaced by a standing as Olga joins Emma is fighting Percy and Algy.
- 45:25 — Alexander and Macnee in their fencing scene, very nicely intercut with close-ups of Macnee.
- Running time: 49′21″
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).
Thankfully, the new blu ray releases for series 4–6 appear to use native 24fps with soft telecine so the running times and pitch all seem to be correct again along with a much grreatly improved picture quality, most notably in the Tara King episodes which are finally back to their original glory.