Series 6 — Episode 5
Whoever Shot Poor George Oblique Stroke XR40?

Regional broadcasts

TV Times listing

International broadcasts

This episode was not broadcast in Italy until 1982.

Continuity & Trivia

1. 1:35 — The sign on the fence has a typo: “Computor”
2. 3:40 — Baines’ reading out of the message is overdubbed, his lips don’t move.
3. 12:51 — There’s a flicker of the shadow of the boom microphone as Steed steps through the archway.
4. 16:49 — A hair or thread appears in the top left corner of the screen as Steed enters the computer facility. It remains until 21:58 so must have been introduced when the episode was edited or remastered.
5. 21:58 — There’s vertical banding in the bright sky part of the picture,
6. 22:20–22:36 — The shadow of the boom microphone on the arch as Jason answers the door. It wavers about all over the wall as he and Steed cross the room.
7. 23:24 — The boom microphone appears in shot at the top of the screen as Steed says, “Sorry to trouble you again, Sir Wilfred, I wanted to be the first to convey the good news...”.
8. 27:22 — Steed kills Jacobs by putting his steel-reinforced bowler over Jacob’s gun. The shot ricochets and kills the man who fired it.
9. 27:34 — The hair at the top left corner returns.
10. 34:20 — Tara has the blue outfit from My Wildest Dream in her suitcase.
11. 44:40 — Is that the same summer house as in Mission... Highly Improbable?
12. 47:54 — George delivers the cocktail recipe in four seconds flat, which Steed estimates would have taken five hundred bartenders four years. “Licencing hours permitting”, observes Tara.
13. George’s messages:
    1. 3:26 — “Attention! - I have a message of the utmost importance ... HELP ....”
    2. 10:43 — “Pelley .... traitor”
    3. 43:47 (actually started to be printed at 42:35 when Ardmore exclaims, “He’s started to talk!”) - (A secret message from Pelley)
       • Help me
       • I am being held a prisoner in my own house
       • I am being drugged and interrogated daily, systematically they are milking every secret from me
       • My staff are being held as hostages, they will kill them if I do not co-operate
       • Tobin is in with them, Tobin is a traitor
       • But the ringleader, the man behind it all is...
       • The man who is posing as Jason, my butler
14. Running time: 49′29″

Cast and production notes

1. Valerie Leon, (just barely) seen here greatly covered up and masked, made quite a name for herself in Hammer sex-horror films such as “Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb” (which she spent most of bare breasted with a heaving bossom) and several Carry On films, notably “Carry On Camping” and “Carry On Spying : Agent Ooh”.
2. Cyreil Frankel recently stated that his style was more theatrical than “The Avengers” and he was surprised to be asked to direct an episode, and sought help from the crew to ensure his episode blended with the rest of the series. On viewing the finished episode he recognised little of it and wonders if another director should not have been credited instead of him.

The Transport

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The Fashions