Product Details

• Actors: Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg, Honor Blackman, Linda Thorson, Ian Hendry
• Writers: Sydney Newman
• Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: A&E Home Video
• DVD Release Date: August 31, 1999
• Run Time: 170 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0767018672
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #186,340 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Avengers '66: Vol. 1" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

"Where have all the martlets gone?" That's the not particularly intriguing mystery that gentleman spy John Steed (Patrick Macnee) and his partner, Mrs. Emma Peel (Diana Rigg), root out in "Silent Dust," one of three episodes on this DVD from the 1966 season of The Avengers. It has something to do with a fertilizer that "went wrong" and a plot to defoliate all of England "if necessary." A highlight is a wounded Steed's delirious fantasy in which a mustachioed Mrs. Peel, garbed in Old West duds and clutching a jug of Red Eye, removes a bullet. The climactic chase has horsebacked bad guys tallyhoing after Mrs. Peel, giving new meaning to the phrase "fox hunt." "Room Without a View" is better, as Steed and Mrs. Peel check out a hotel in which seven guests--all physicists--have mysteriously disappeared from room 612. Steed gets the episode's best line. He informs Mrs. Peel that a by-the-book bureaucrat requires everything in triplicate. Regarding his ravishing partner, he smiles, "I wonder what he'll think of you." In "Small Game for Big Hunters," Steed and Mrs. Peel do the voodoo that they do so well. Local farmers are in comas. Is it "the curse that follows one across continents"? Why has the Kalayan jungle been re-created in the English countryside? And what's with those incessant and infernal tribal drums? James Villers makes a diabolical villain as hunter Simon "That's not all I've shot" Trent. All three episodes are in black and white. --Donald Liebenson

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Small Game for Big Hunters Bags its Quarry, December 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Avengers '66, Set 1 [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The best episodes of this compilation are the satirical Small Game for Big Hunters (Levene,) Silent Dust(Roger Marshall), and the hilarious Girl from AUNTIE. Small Game satirizes colonialism, white man's burden and pokes fun at jungle pictures. The opening sequence is attention grabbing. A man hacks his way through the jungle, using a knife. Drums pound, the air is rife with animal cries. He scales a barbed wire fence? and is shot in the back with an arrow. He falls unconscious beneath a sign- London 123 miles. Steed and Emma investigate clues to an African nation. Steed meets a demented retired colonel, convinced he is still in Africa. "By jove the natives are restless tonight!" he observes at one point. "Give em some colored beads!" the writers wickedly spoof condescending colonial attitudes and prejudices. Diana Rigg as Emma is eyecatching in her sarong. A funny episode by Levene.

The Girl from Auntie spoofs the American show The Man from Uncle. Mrs. Emma Peel is drugged, kidnapped and held for nefarious purposes. A returning Steed finds a naive blonde actress impersonating Mrs. Peel. The lethal knitting needle assassin is a caution. A naive Georgie fends off the assassin frantically consulting one of Emma's books. Reading aloud about kneeing an assailant in the groin Georgie observes "She must have some terribly aggressive boyfriends!"

Silent Dust has amusing sequences. "I'll see what I can pick up here," Steed says (of his sluthing efforts) "I'm sure you will- pick up something." Emma's putdown is priceless. Steed's attempt to chat up and charm a young horsewoman is viewed with amusement by Emma who openly laughs at him from across the bar. Despite concerns about Touch of Brimstone this episode has a very unpleasant whipping sequence. Emma is pursued by three villains. As she takes of on foot the loutish farmhand bets "whichever of us gets there first, gets the-" And the censors didn't fuss about this one? The 13th Hole is more mundane. Quick Quick Slow Death, like Girl from Auntie, has a lighthearted charm. Emma and Steed's sluthing leads them to a dance school. Emma is less than thrilled by an amourous Italian shoe designer- very funny Rigg sequence "Madame," he proclaims dramatically as he takes a plaster cast of Emma's foot "I am at your feet!" Emma becomes a dance instructress who has to ward off the unwelcome attentions of the male co-owner of the business. Steed poses as a lonely bachelor. "There was someone but she is no more. She was eaten by a crocodile!" The tag a neat touch. Emma and Steed having despatched the villains, waltz around the dance floor, then they are dancing in the clouds.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great series, March 14, 2002

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Avengers '66, Set 1 [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is my favorite Avengers team, Mrs. Peel and Mr. Steed. Together, Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee make the series. This series is very superb. Diana Rigg, an attractive woman, and Patrick Macnee, a good actor make this series. These 6 episodes are some of the best of the Avengers.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Steed Makes Strange Bedfellows - Emma Becomes A Swinger, May 10, 2002

By 

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

This review is from: The Avengers '66, Set 1 [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The six episodes in this set happen to be the most average of the black-and-white Diana Rigg series. Not bad - in fact, not bad at all - but not extraordinary, either. There's a bit of camp (and Rigg in a nice suit of undress) in "The Girl From A.U.N.T.I.E.," and splendid wit and humor (with some of the best Steed-Emma interplay in the series) in the somewhat satirical "Quick-Quick Slow Death."

The rest are straightforward and rather prosaic entries. "Silent Dust" is the best of these, with Steed and Emma preventing economic blackmail by use of a top-secret stolen chemical agent. "Room Without A View" and "Small Game For Big Hunters" are fairly dull, really, except for the usual wonderful interplay between Steed and Emma (and there's less of that than usual), and "The 13th Hole" is a reasonably clever spy story revolving around a private golf club.

Just because these aren't the best the series had to offer doesn't mean they're not worth watching. The Avengers, at its most mundane, was much better than virtually every other show at its best.