You Can't Go Home Again..Sorta

[shakatany]

The Persuaders ran for one season from 1971-72 back when I was young and ignorant and this wave of feminism was in its infancy. As I wrote earlier I loved the Persuaders and had crushes on both Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis) and Lord Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore post-Saint and pre-James Bond). Now looking back at the episodes I can only shake my head at my taste in men. They (and the writing) were prime examples of male chauvinism in the extreme. Most female characters were bleached blonde (did conditioners exist in the early 70s because a lot of the hair was strawlike?) bimbos or innocent damsels in distress. There was one episode "Chain of Events" with an Emily Major (Suzanna Leigh ) who came across as a version of Cathy Gale (Mrs Emma Peel of "The Avengers" precursor) but she was the only one I've seen in this first batch of 12 eps. I actually remembered for decades that episode's hilarious opening scene where the 2 heroes are camping. Another memorable scene was in "The Old, the New and the Deadly" where Patrick Troughton's character sends a hitman to kill Danny. Danny's in the shower and hearing the knock, he wraps a towel around his waist and answers the door (no one in this series seems to ask "Who is it?). Seeing the gun he raises his arms, the towel drops and the hitman is startled long enough to be tackled by Brett. The dialog in the series was extremely witty and a lot of the banter was ad-libbed by the stars themselves. Filmed in England and the south of France it's visually a stunning record of a bygone era (some of the fashions are hilarious and I'm talking about the males *g*). It's now a very interesting anachronism and shows how far we've come and yet how little some things have changed. Thirty years from now will I look at Spike and wonder what I saw in him?