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Review by Neil Vokes
Neil is the artist behind some of the
best comics of recent years: The Black Forest, The Black Forest 2 and The Wicked West. He is also an active
participant in the Yahoo Group
“Bloody Hell of TV on DVD”
where the below review was first published.
Writer:
John Kruse (Inn of the Frightened People [aka Revenge], Satan's
Playthings, William Tell, The Saint, among other films
& TV)
Director: Basil Dearden
(The Man Who Haunted Himself, Khartoum, Dead of Night, among
others)
Guest star: Laurence Naismith
(Judge Fulton), Annette Andre (Pekoo Rayne), Melissa Stribling (Lisa), John
Phillips (Koestler)
I was
scanning over the past 5 episodes again and thought that i'd quote the Judge's
comments (from the pilot) on our two heroes-they sum up the boys to a T:
"Lord Brett Sinclair...now that was once a proud and noble name!... What have you done with it?...You are a first class athlete, a connoisseur of the arts, a gourmet with a lusty taste in wine and oman...Yours is the glib tongue at a hundred mindless parties. Lord Brett Sinclair, born with a silver spoon in his mouth! And all he ever does is lick the jam from it."
"Irrepressible, optimistic, courageous, AND a sense of humor. Those are great qualities, Mr. Wilde. Qualities that pulled you out of a New York slum and pushed you to the top of the financial tree. You have made and lost several fortunes. Now, moneymaking has become so easy for you that you don't really bother anymore...You were a nothing who became something. And now, you are a nothing again."
Well, on to the 5th episode, Powerswitch -
The pre credits sequence opens on the French Riviera with Brett and Danny having a water skiing race, which Brett apparently loses-that is until we see that he's discovered a rather sexy, bikini clad (and unfortunately for us) dead woman floating in the waters -The lads are justifiably outraged when it seems the police are less than anxious to bother solving the mystery - the addition of her best friend and fellow dancer,the lovely (and very blonde) Pekoo (Annette Andre - she was apparently a popular guest star on Moore's original series, The Saint, as she appeared no less than 5 times - and as different characters - also seen in Richard Lester's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and on Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) as Jeannie Hopkirk) helps fire up their determination to find some answers.
We find out that The Judge, with his buddy the inspector, has again tricked Danny & Brett into action by offending their inherent sense of justice rather than just straight out asking them to investigate, what a great way to run a partnership ;o)
The boys individually discover that her late, wet friend was quite fond of rich boyfriends, especially one multi-millionaire named Koestler (actor John Phillips - seen in Olivier's Richard III, the classic Village of the Damned, Hammer's The Mummy's Shroud, and Z Cars among others) who lives in a remote mansion with his assistant, his wife (Melissa Stribling - Crucible of Terror, The Avengers, Confessions of a Window Cleaner and more - but I recall her fondly from the Hammer classic, Dracula - in which she has one of the most singularly erotic moments in film and yet all she does is smile - you fellow Hammerheads know which scene I'm referring to...grrrrowl ;o) and his extensive stuffed bird collection.
When Brett and Pekoo finally arrive at his palatial home they find Danny already there - it would seem that he's an old business associate of the wealthy Koestler but has his doubts that he's the real McCoy- yes, boys and girls, another imposter episode!
I can't say I overly enjoyed this entry in the series but the abundant babeage on hand (including several skimpily clad dancers, the "dead" bikini babe and the more mature Miss Stribling for we old farts in the audience) more shots of the French Riviera and it's scary, winding mountain roadways and of course, the lads themselves ( who have an amusing escape scene where Danny proves that he's no Houdini - a gold star to those of you who get my inside joke ;o) - which still fills an hour quite nicely- all in all an average ep,which in Persuaders terms doesn't say much, but in comparison to other such shows is no insult.
Note: the millionaire's office has a large world map of his corporate holdings on the wall, which is also used in another ep, but for a different character- the climactic scene proves that Moore shouldn't dance on camera- yeesh- and for those of us who are following the changing color of Curtis' hair, it's back to dark - which implies this is one of the earlier produced entries, shown out of order.
Buy: