Tonight's Saturday Night Special is Episode 23 of season 4 of the killer 1960's British TV show, "The Avengers!" I had something else actually planned, but I was rooting around in the garage trying to organize a bunch of crap when I found this VHS tape I had forgotten about!
Being as "The Avengers" was one of my favorite TV shows in 1966, It's hard for me to believe this will be the first episode we've ever discussed in these pages, and it's a good one!
The male star of "The Avengers" was the always splendid hat trick Patrick Macnee as John Steed!
Patrick's co-star on the show was Diana Rigg as Mrs. Emma Peel!
In my humble opinion, two of the most beautiful, intelligent, and funny women of the 1960's were Elizabeth Montgomery of "Bewitched" fame, and Diana Rigg, who was Mrs. Emma Peel in 51 episodes of "The Avengers!"
This episode titled "The House That Jack Built" aired May 16, 1966 and is genuinely creepy!
"The House That Jack Built" is practically a solo vehicle for Emma Peel. She has apparently inherited an old house from an unknown Uncle Jack, and is off to see what it's all about!
Once she is inside the house, it turns into some kind of dark ride roomful of mirrors from the mind of some insane carnival barker!
There is no Uncle Jack, and this is a crazy house where one door just leads her back to where she came from over and over again!
I swear there is almost no dialogue for 15 or 20 minutes while Mrs. Peel wanders helplessly around and around in circles! Occasionally she'll say something like "Who's there?"
Diana Rigg looks amazing throughout the whole insane ordeal, and quite the ordeal it surely is!
Somehow, amongst all the madness, she finds an opportunity to drink a glass of wine!
Finally, she finds this part of the house!
"The "Late" part is kind of unsettling!
"The "Late" part is kind of unsettling!
Whoever is trying to drive her mad, has drenched up all these photos and objects from her past!
It gets kinda weird and creepier when she starts carrying her old doll around!
It gets kinda weird and creepier when she starts carrying her old doll around!
Some people can carry a grudge for way too long of a time!
The guy got fired so he spends the rest of his life and Lord knows how much money to create a house that will drive Emma Peel insane! I think he just might have a problem!
Another problem is that this mentally deranged fellow with a shotgun has also been confined in the house, and he keeps reciting the British nursery rhyme "The House That Jack Built" over and over! More than anything he's just really annoying!
The "Automation Man" himself is dead, but the house is pre-programmed to drive Emma Peel screaming yellow bonkers, and that's it's sole reason for existing.
In this pre-recorded video, the revengeful madman tells Mrs. Peel that his self-contained krazy house runs on solar power and has frictionless bearings, so she needs to get ready for a long and arduous journey!
Everything has a weak spot, and eventually Emma Peel finds it!
In the end John Steed finally shows up just in time to escort Mrs. Peel home!
The moral of the story...Be careful as you go through life because you just never know who you might piss off!
It doesn't matter if it's on the job, or waiting in the buffet line for the crab legs at the local Chinese restaurant! They're out there waiting for you, and eventually, they're going to find you!
It doesn't matter if it's on the job, or waiting in the buffet line for the crab legs at the local Chinese restaurant! They're out there waiting for you, and eventually, they're going to find you!
3 comments:
This was the first Avengers episode I ever saw just a few years ago. I thought it was interesting that they cover her personal history, which I've not seen in any other episode.
Absolutely LOVE that episode... apparently it's a better rewrite of a similar episode from the earlier Cathy Gale era of The Avengers. But Emma was always better than Cathy.
BTW, you're the only other person (besides me) who's put Elizabeth Montgomery and Diana Rigg together. They're a great deal alike in some way---maybe it's the Scottish ancestry in their looks--but it's also something in their acting styles. They had the same range, the same inner beauty that comes out in their body language and faces.
Thanx Randall! We are kindred spirits indeed.
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