Product Details

• Actors: Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg, Honor Blackman, Linda Thorson, Ian Hendry
• Writers: Sydney Newman
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: A&E Home Video
• VHS Release Date: April 27, 1999
• Run Time: 104 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305396116
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,011 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

With a provocative swat on her leather-clad bottom, John Steed (Patrick Macnee) first clashes swords with his new partner, Mrs. Emma Peel (Diana Rigg), in "The Town of No Return," the episode that launched the fourth season of The Avengers. "Town" begins on a characteristically surreal note as a figure emerges from the sea in what looks like a giant Hefty bag. Out pops an impeccably dressed gent who notes to a nonplussed fisherman, "Looks like rain," which brings us to Bazeley by the Sea, a quaint but odd village where four agents have disappeared. Will Steed and Mrs. Peel be numbers five and six? Like one of the treats Steed offers Peel on their Bazeley-bound train, this episode is "a marzipan delight." In "The Gravediggers," Steed and Mrs. Peel dig up a sinister plot to sabotage Britain's radar defense system. But this doesn't quite explain how Mrs. Peel finds herself tied to a train track with a miniature locomotive chugging toward her! Both episodes are in glorious black and white. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 are also available together in The Avengers '65 Set 1. --Donald Liebenson

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Return with the Avengers to the Town of No Return!, December 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Avengers '65, Vol. 1 [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Town of No Return is the Avegers at its best. The initial scene of a plastic bag emerging from the sea, a man popping out of it matter of factly directed to the town by a fisherman is priceless.

Emma fencing with Steed is delightful. He proceeds to criticize her fencing technique, she challenges him to a match...

Anyone who objected to Steed kissing Emma Peel once during the film must be extraordinarly innocent. In one scene in this episode Steed comes to Emma's bedroom at night. "Isn't it time you were in bed?" he asks her, separated from touching her only by the bottle he clutches. She nods.

The black and white episode mixes the supposedly normal- the pub, the church, the school with a tense sense of menace. A friendly man returns to look up his brother,the village blacksmith, and is stalked by locals bearing guns who track him with dogs! Delightful opening scene of Steed and Mrs. Peel and a nice contrast of the hiden menace beneath the seemingly peaceful small town where four agent mysteriously vanished.

The second episode is even more delightful -mixing a charming eccentric elderly man devoted to railroads who has his own miniature railroad that he rides, undertakers who rush about in a hearse, clad in black top hats and tails. In addition, they book their funerals four to six weeks in advance! The mock up of the operating scene is very funny. "Scapel!" calls the surgeon. "Blowtorch." Blowtorch? The climactic finale of Emma, tied to a train track, Steed battling two villains to the thumping piano accompaniment (spoofing silent films) is a pure delight. The second one contrasts with the grimmer mood of the first. Well worth returning to again and again!

5.0 out of 5 stars Steed Takes A Train - Emma Rides the Rail, May 19, 2002

By 

Bruce Rux (Aurora, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Avengers '65, Vol. 1 [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The first of the Diana Rigg episodes are among the best of the entire series.

"The Gravediggers" is a straightforward espionage story, marked by The Avengers' usual oddball elements and formula. The local cemetery is somehow being used to jam signals, and Steed and Emma have to sort it out. An eccentric old man who builds oversize train sets is in the middle of it, and Steed has to rescue a bound-to-the-tracks Emma in a humorously exciting finale.

"The Town Of No Return" is a great story, in which an isolated seaside town is being used by a foreign power to infiltrate Britain with fifth-column invaders. The setup is good, the payoff better. The Avengers find themselves going literally underground, to break it all up.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars super, December 20, 2010

By 

diane - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Avengers '65, Vol. 1 [VHS] (VHS Tape)

arrived in less then 2 weeks and was in very good condition and all of the tapes worked just perfectly .