"The Removal Men" was the second of the six episodes featuring Venus Smith (Julie Stevens), and a great improvement on the first. Steed goes undercover on the French Riviera to infiltrate a team of professional assassins whose latest target is a beautiful French starlet (Edina Ronay), whose demise figures to grant the outfit excellent publicity. One of the members, Bug Siegel (Edwin Richfield, the show's most frequent guest star, previously seen in "Girl on the Trapeze"), runs a nightclub where Venus Smith is singing, but her involvement proves to be disastrous for Steed, whose cover gets blown sky high (though her singing does provide the distraction needed to dispose of the ringleaders.) The Dave Lee Trio does one number without Venus, and she herself sings three songs, needless padding that detracts from the entry's effectiveness. While Venus wisely spends most of the episode on the sidelines, other women steal the show; sexy Patricia Denys plays Cecile Dragna, wife of gang leader Jack Dragna (Reed R. de Rouen, previously seen in "The Far-Distant Dead"), who is introduced in the nude as Steed rifles her husband's safe and locks her in the bathroom, yet winds up admiring her captor, effortlessly flirting with him throughout. 18 year old Edina Ronay, who later appeared in "The Nutshell," displays her ample curves in a very brief bikini, being hustled off the beach by One Ten (Douglas Muir), Steed's superior, making the fourth of his five appearances. George Roderick previously did "Crescent Moon," George Little later did "Man with Two Shadows," and Ivor Dean went on to do "Dead Man's Treasure" and "Super Secret Cypher Snatch." The next Venus Smith episode would be "Box of Tricks."
