Series 5 — Episode 12
The Superlative Seven
by Brian Clemens
Directed by Sidney Hayers
Steed flies to nowhere
Emma does her party piece
Production No E.66.6.12
Production completed: March 13 1967. First transmission: April 5 1967.
Regional broadcasts
| Broadcaster | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Rediffusion London | 7/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
| ABC Midlands | 8/04/1967 | 9.10pm |
| ABC North | 8/04/1967 | 9.10pm |
| Anglia Television | 7/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
| Border Television | 4/02/1968 | 8.10pm |
| Channel Television | 5/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
| Grampian Television | 7/02/1968 | 8.00pm |
| Southern Television | 7/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
| Scottish Television | 8/12/1967 | 8.00pm |
| Tyne Tees Television | 5/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
| Ulster Television | 15/02/1968 | 7.30pm |
| Westward Television | 5/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
| Television Wales & West | 7/04/1967 | 8.00pm |
TV Times listing
9.10 The Avengers
starring
Patrick Macnee
as John Steed
and
Diana Rigg
as Emma Peel
in
The Superlative Seven
By Brian Clemens
In which Steed flies to nowhere — and Emma does her party piece
Cast also includes
| Hana | Charlotte Rampling |
| Mark Dayton | Brian Blessed |
| Jason Wade | James Maxwell |
| Max Hardy | Hugh Manning |
| Freddy Richards | Leon Greene |
| Joe Smith | Gary Hope |
| Jessel | Donald Sutherland |
| Kanwitch | John Hollis |
| Stewardess | Margaret Neale |
| Toy Sung | Terry Plummer |
Designed by Robert Jones
Music by Laurie Johnson
Directed by Sidney Hayers
Produced by Albert Fennell
and Brian Clemens
Executive Producer
Julian Wintle
ABC Weekend Network Production
International broadcasts
| Broadcaster | Date | Time |
|---|---|---|
| ABN2 Sydney, Australia | 20/06/1967 | 8.00pm |
| ABQ2 Brisbane, Australia | 24/07/1967 | 7.30pm |
| ABV2 Melbourne, Australia | 19/06/1967 | 8.00pm |
| ABS2 Adelaide, Australia | 1/08/1967 | 7.30pm |
| ABC New York, USA | 21/04/1967 | 10.00pm |
| ORTF2 France | 13/08/1968 | 8.30pm |
| Suisse Romande, Switzerland | 17/06/1968 | 8.40pm |
| French title | Le dernier des sept | |
| ZDF Germany | 12/03/1968 | 9.15pm |
| German title | Fliegen Sie mal ohne | |
| KRO Netherlands | ||
| Dutch title | ||
| Svizzera Italiana | 21/12/1973 | 10.00pm |
| Italian title | uno su sette | |
| Spain | 27/11/1967 | 4.10pm |
| Spanish title | Los siete superlativos | |
In Switzerland on 10 June 68, Carrefour and this episode of The Avengers were pre-empted by the documentary “L’attentat de Los Angeles”, covering the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. The episode was rescheduled for the following Saturday, June 17 1968.
Episode Rating
| Subject | 0–5 |
|---|---|
| Direction | 4½ stars |
| Music | 3 stars |
| Humour | 3 stars |
| Intro/tag | 4½ stars |
| Mastermind | 4½ stars |
| Plot | 3½ stars |
| Emma | 3 stars |
| Set Design | 2 stars |
| Overall (0–10) |
7½ stars |
A good earthy Agatha Christie story as a vehicle for Steed. Not what you’d normally expect from The Avengers, but it works nonetheless.
Mrs. Peel summons Steed with a rubber duck; he is needed to
attend a fancy dress party — somewhere above the south of
England!
Stranded on an unknown island, Steed and the other guests are
told that one of their number is a killer. The scenario has
been staged by Jessel to convince Kanwitch that his agent is
unbeatable. Charlotte Rampling shines in the rôle of Hana
Wild, despite unfortunately knocking out Steed, whom she
suspects to be the killer. Mrs. Peel drops in to expose that
the agent is actually a pair of identical twins and Jessel
loses a shoot-out with Mrs. Wild.
Steed drops in on a Mrs. Peel’s duck shoot, just as she bags a
brace of teddy bears — but she missed the bottle of Bollinger!
The Cars
| Marque/Model | Colour | Number Plate |
|---|---|---|
| Lotus Elan S3 | glacier blue | SJH 499D |
| Handley-Page Herald | blue and white | - |
Who’s Killing Whom?
| Victim | Killer | Method | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toy Sung V* | Stewardess V* | Sword | |||
| Freddy Richards | Wade V* | Broken back | |||
| Joe Smith | Wade V* | Pitchfork | |||
| Max Hardy | Wade V* | Sword | |||
| Mark Dayton | Wade V* | Garotte | |||
| Jason Wade V* | Steed | Spear | |||
| Wade’s twin V* | Emma | Thrown off balcony | |||
| Kanwitch V* | Jessel V* | Pistol | |||
| * Wade is in fact two characters, Jason Wade and his unnamed twin. Working out which is which is left as an exercise to the reader. | |||||
The Fashions
Continuity and trivia
- 4:28 & 47:28 — What sort of hunters are Steed and Emma anyway? At the beginning (4:28/4:15) Steed shoots at wood pigeons a nd at the end Emma shoots at the same (47:28), both of them expecting to bring down ducks.
- 4:55 — Steed has been invited to a party by Sir George Robertson DSO CBE KCB.
- 5:51 — The back of the invitation reads:
Clements Airport 18.30 hrs ..TINUM QUINTUM IDUS MARTIAS
i.e. 6.30pm on 11th March (ante diem quintum idus Martias). - 7:17 — Freddy Richards looks at Steed’s costume and quips, “Kitchener’s Valet?” — “I was Kitchener’s Valet” was an exceedingly fashionable shop on Carnaby St, frequented by the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones, which sold old military uniforms among other things.
- 8:54 — Hana quotes the nursery rhyme, “here comes the chopper to chop off our heads”
- 10:23 (10:10) — There’s a continuity error when the plane’s taking off (10:10) — Steed and Mrs. Wild fasten themselves into their seats, then they’re peering out the portholes, then they’re back in their seats again, all in the twinkling of an eye!
- 11:03 — The footage of the aeroplane passing overhead — call sign G-ASBP — has been flipped horizontally.
- 11:47 — We had already heard that Steed was invited by Sir George Robertson DSO CBE KCB and we now learn the supposed hosts of the other guests: Hana Wilde had been invited by Mark Salter (or Walters?), Joe Smith by Jack Peters, Max Hardy by Lance Quilley, Freddy Richards by Charlie Reed, Jason Wade by Alfred Williams (although we learn he was actually there at Jessel’s behest), and Mark Dayton was invited by “a man called Godfrey”.
- 13:37 — sea shot — stock?
- 14:52 — The aeroplane seems to change a lot. On the ground, it’s a Handley-Page Herald, but it has new livery (and is a different model) in one shot in the air; and in another it’s become a low-winged craft!
The cockpit
On the ground...
but what is this?
a new paint job!Consensus is that the aeroplane used in the episode was a twin engined Handley-Page Herald, probably about to be sold by BEA to Global Air, as all the livery has been painted out.
Opinion is divided as to whether the scenes were shot at Radlett, where Handley-Page were based, or Luton, as there are Bristol Brittanias on the field, and both Monarch and Britannia were based at Luton. - The cockpit used in some scenes was taken from a Trident 1, probably also BEA. 14:55 and throughout — G-APMG serial on controls in cockpit — which would make it the cockpit from a BEA deHavilland Comet 4B.
- 17:57 — The shot from the air shows the same islands as were used in an episode of “The Prisoner”.
- 20:43/21:13 and throughout — The house is dilapidated, has no out-size playing cards, but is otherwise more or less identical to the house in The Joker.
- 36:33 — Steed is completely out of focus when he enters the main hall.
- 39:00 — Steed says to Wade, revealed as the killer, “You were with me when Smith was killed”. — but he wasn’t! Everyone bar the dead Freddy and Smith were in the house, it’s true, but when Smith is actually killed, Steed is search the woods, alone. (On the other hand, he was with him when Hardy was killed, so perhaps it was a late script change or an error by Macnee).
- 39:35 — stunt doubles for fight
- 40:20 — The wall nearly collapses when Wade tumbles over it.
- 43:28 — scratch on film right down middle of negative.
- 46:07 — There’s a small hole in the film negative, almost dead centre.
- 47:56 — Moët et Chandon product placement
- Running time: 49′07″
- Rocky Taylor and the stuntman called in to replace him both suffered cuts tpo the wrist dutring filming.
A note on the timecodes
Timecodes for episodes are problematic as each release has its own quirks so the 2009–11 Optimum Releasing/Studio Canal DVD sets have different run times compared to the A&E and Contender DVD sets from a decade beforehand. The newer Studio Canal & Via Vision blu rays seems to be back in line with the earlier releases, except they often have StudioCanal idents lasting 20 to 22 seconds added to the beginning.
The Optimum Releasing/Studio Canal DVD releases were 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).
The 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 running 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 greatly improved picture quality, most notably in the Tara King episodes which are finally (mostly) back to their original glory.
Cast notes
- This episode is famous because of the calibre of its guest cast — Donald Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, Brian Blessed are the most famous today and Brian Clemens reflect they wouldn’t be able to afford them now.
James Maxwell, Hugh Manning, Leon Greene and Gary Hope were much sought-after in their time as well; so too John Hollis and Terry Plummer in their way.