The Avengers: Season 6, Episode 5You Have Just Been Murdered (24 Jan. 1968)Steed and Mrs. Peel stop a clever blackmailing scheme targeting millionaires. Director:Robert AsherWriter:Philip Levene (teleplay) |
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"You Have Just Been Murdered" is another ingenious Philip Levene plot line, as millionaires are being blackmailed by extortionists who demonstrate how easily each can be killed (four times is the limit before the exchange takes place). George Murcell ("Square Root of Evil") plays the mastermind Nathaniel Needle, conveniently hiding out in a haystack, but it's Simon Oates ("Super Secret Cypher Snatch") who steals the show as the smiling assassin Skelton (Oates would go on to portray John Steed in a stage production of THE AVENGERS). Diana Rigg's Emma Peel is more stylish than usual, whether climbing a tree or throwing an opponent over her shoulder while immersed in water. Series veteran Frank Maher makes his fifth of six appearances (a terrific fight to the death with a leather-clad Mrs. Peel), along with Geoffrey Chater ("You'll Catch Your Death"), John Baker ("Requiem"), and Les Crawford ("The 50,000 Breakfast"). Leslie French ("Death of a Great Dane") plays the victimized Lord Rathbone, so named in honor of the late Basil Rathbone, who died July 21 1967, just as this episode began shooting. In an unusual twist, Rathbone was in New York City, en route to England, where he was to do "The Blood Beast Terror," co-starring with Peter Cushing, replaced at the last moment by Robert Flemyng, who here appears as the banker, Lord Maxted (best remembered for his starring role opposite British beauty Barbara Steele in the 1962 Italian Gothic "The Horrible Dr. Hichcock").