• title card: white all caps text reading ‘HAVE GUNS - WILL HAGGLE’ superimposed on a rubber clown mask hanging from a broken barbed wire fence
  • Standing before the fence of the defence installation, Steed holds one of the experimental rifles
  • Tara regards herself in a round mirror after putting on her blonde wig
  • Car chase: Tara zooms her Lotus through the gap between a parked bus and Conrad’s Jaguar - stuntmen doing all the driving, of course!
  • Tara picks up a wooden crate with ease, so she can hurl it at the henchman coming towards her
  • Tara, in a red tartan tunic, listens to what’s happening outside, unable to escape as her left wrist is cuffed to the crates of munitions
  • Tara and Steed share a joke as they await the President’s gift - Steed has already made way for it by taking down the painting over his fireplace

Series 6 — Episode 11
Have Guns - Will Haggle

Teleplay by Donald James
Directed by Ray Austin

Production No E.66.6.30 / E.67.9.4
Production completed: March 15 1968. First transmission: December 11 1968. First transmission (USA): May 1 1968

Regional broadcasts

BroadcasterDateTime
Thames Television11/12/19688:00pm
ATV Midlands12/12/19687:00pm
Granada Television30/03/19698:25pm
Anglia Television12/12/19687:00pm
Border Television22/12/19688:10pm
Channel Television12/12/19687:00pm
Grampian Television11/12/19688:00pm
Southern Television19/02/19698:00pm
Scottish Television20/03/19698:00pm
Tyne Tees Television11/12/19688:00pm
Ulster Television12/12/19687:00pm
Westward Television12/12/19687:00pm
Harlech Television12/12/19687:00pm
Yorkshire Television13/12/19687:35pm

TV Times listing

TV Times listing for April 9 1970, 11pm (Yorkshire edition)
TV Times listing for a 1980s repeat on Channel Four
Sydney Morning Herald listing for November 29 1968, The Avengers untitled at 8pm
The Canberra Times listing for November 29 1968, The Avengers mis-titled at 8pm
The Age listing for November 19 1968, The Avengers untitled at 8.30pm

11.0
The Avengers

Patrick Macnee
Linda Thorson in
Have Guns — Will Haggle

By Donald James

Steed and Tara investigate the disappearance of 3,000 top secret rifles from a government depot.

John Steed Patrick Macnee
Tara King Linda Thorson
Col Nsonga Johnny Sekka
Adriana Nicola Pagett
Conrad Jonathan Burn
Spencer Timothy Bateson
Crayford Michael Turner

Designer Robert Jones; Director Ray Austin Producers Albert Fennell, Brian Clemens; Executive in Charge of Production Gordon L. T. Scott

9.30
The Avengers

Patrick Macnee
Linda Thorson
Have Guns — Will Haggle

By Donald James

A raid on a Government Ordnance factory gives a four-man gang a rich haul of 3000 F.F. 70 rifles — a new type still on the secret list.

Previously shown on ITV

John Steed Patrick Macnee
Tara King Linda Thorson
Col Nsonga Johnny Sekka
Adriana Nicola Pagett
Conrad Jonathan Burn
Spencer Timothy Bateson
Crayford Michael Turner
Lift attendant Robert Gillespie
Giles Roy Stewart
Brad Peter J. Elliott

Executive in Charge of Production Gordon L. T. Scott Designer Robert Jones Director Ray Austin Producers Albert Fennell, Brian Clemens

ABC Television Network Production

The 1970 repeat listing for Yorkshire credited less of the cast than in the 1980s repeat listing.

International broadcasts

BroadcasterDateTime
ABN2 Sydney, Australia29/11/19688:00pm
ABV2 Melbourne, Australia19/11/19688:30pm
ABC New York, USA1/05/19687:30pm
ORTF2 France29/11/196910:05pm
Suisse Romande, Switzerland
French titleUn dangereux marché
ZDF Germany
German titleBiete Putsch - suche Waffen
KRO Netherlands24/03/19709:10pm
Dutch titleWappenroof
TTI Italy10/12/1980 C51
Italian titleTraffico d'armi
Spain10/11/196911:00pm
Spanish titleRevólver a la orden... ¿Quién da más?

Swiss, German and Italian channels did not screen this episode in contemporary broadcasts, but viewers near the French and Dutch borders may have seen it.

USA: Chicago Tribune listing for May 1 1968, 6.30pm
USA: New York Times listing for May 1 1968, 7.30pm
Spain: ABC Madrid listing for November 9 1969, 11pm
France: Le Confédéré listing for November 29 1969, 10.05pm
Netherlands: Dagblad de Stem listing for March 24 1970, 9.10 pm
Netherlands: Limburgsch Dagblad listing for March 24 1970 showing the Dutch title, 9.10pm

Continuity & Trivia

  1. 3:49 — Have Guns - Will Haggle is one of those rare episodes with more than one title screen:
    < title card: white all caps text reading ‘HAVE GUNS -’ superimposed on a rubber clown mask hanging from a broken barbed wire fence
  2. 5:05 — We’ve seen that house before... maybe in Escape In Time!
  3. 6:29 — That looks like the same towpath where Danvers was shot at in The Bird Who Knew Too Much.
  4. 14:45 — Conrad’s Jaguar is suddenly turned at an improbable angle from where it had been seconds earlier after Tara fights off the henchman.
  5. 16:49 — When Steed visits Colonel Nsonga, he’s listening to some of the music from Small Game for Big Hunters.
  6. 22:39 etc. - Some obvious back projection studio work when Steed is ‘driving’.
  7. 23:29 — It’s obviously not Macnee who gets out of the Bentley! It’s probably Paul Weston.
  8. 25:32 — A little model train goes across the model bridge outside Tara’s window.
  9. 37:20 — That’s rather obviously a studio woodland set that they starts wandering around in after Steed leaps the hedge.
  10. Running time: 49′20″
  11. This episode is especially interesting as it gives us a glimpse of Tara Mark I, while John Bryce was still in Charge of production. The producers wanted Thorson to be a blonde but the bleaching damaged her hair, forcing Linda to wear wigs; she’s also slightly overweight. They try to disguise it by having her wear a large pink coat but the difference is obvious around TIMECODE (25:00) when she returns home, pink and plump, then emerges from the bedroom, dark and slim, in a brief little tartan outfit (see feature images 2 & 3).
  12. Just who is so obsessed with clowns?
    We have:

The Transport

MarqueColourNumber
Land-Rover 109" Series IIa 1966dark greenHBW 45D
rowing boatwood-
Jaguar Mk. X 1962dark grey13. ...
Lotus Elan +2 (Type 50) 1967redNPW 999F
Jaguar Mk. II 1965steel blueBNF 642C
AEC Reliance Plaxton Panorama 1964 coachbeige?
Bentley 3 litre 1928 (chassis AX1662)british racing greenYT 3942
Mercedes-Benz 250 SE (W111) 1960steel greyREN 988
Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III Sports Saloon H.J. Mulliner Park Ward 1965greyCDK 978C
Vanden Plas Princess Limousinegrey?
Rolls-Royce 40/50 h.p. ‘Silver Ghost’ 1923 H.J.Mulliner tourer (chassis number 46LK)pale lemonKK 4976

Who’s Killing Whom?

VictimKillerMethod
Smith Conrad assault rifle
Crayford Conrad silenced pistol
Giles Conrad assault rifle
Mercenary Mercenary assault rifle
Mercenary John Steed ??
Mercenary John Steed ??
Conrad John Steed knife
Col. Nsonga John Steed hit by debris from exploding ammunition depot

There might be another death - when Tara is attacked in the warehouse, one of the mercenaries collapses as though he’s shot by the other but we don’t see enough to be sure.

Click a name to see the face

The Fashions

Tara Steed

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