Dr. Wesley Britton is the author of three books on fictional espionage for Praeger Publishers. His fourth, The Encyclopedia of TV Spies, will be published by Bear Manor Media later this year. Many of his interviews, articles, and reviews are posted at his website. Whilst you're there take a look at this page and this page. No particular reason, you just might find them interesting...

Review: The Persuaders on DVD (Vol. 1 of 4. 13 episodes. A&E, 2003)

By Wesley Britton

From 1971 to 1972, a carefully planned and high-budgeted quasi-spy television series was The Persuaders. It featured the team -up of American film star Tony Curtis with England's The Saint, Roger Moore. The show, broadcast on ABC in the U.S. , revolved around the well-born Lord Brett Sinclair (Moore) and Bronx scrapper Danny Wilde (Curtis) originally being sent out on missions by Judge Fulton (Lawrence Naismith). A former judge at the Nuremberg trials, Fulton had blackmailed them into becoming agents for his private crusade for justice at a party on the Riviera , convincing them they were wasting their lives, talents, and money. As I noted in my Spy Television:

"Under the script guidance of Terry Nation, who'd contributed some of the best Steed/King Avengers story lines, the show had a good shot. The Persuaders was the most expensive series made by ITV in England, making Moore the first British star to be a multimillionaire actor based on TV rather than films. Planned to go for five years, The Persuaders sold to even more countries than The Saint and earned huge sums for all concerned even before it was filmed. The show even boasted a John Barry theme."¹

As revealed in the first boxed set of The Persuaders on DVD, there's much more to this story. For decades, The Persuaders has widely been noted as one reason Roger Moore didn't become 007 sooner, but the show has received little attention on its own merits. However, both the refurbished episodes and surprisingly revealing commentary tracks on this collection demonstrate this is one series worthy of reconsideration.

For example, the two rich commentary tracks by Roger Moore and producers Robert Baker and Johnny Goodman are of a level more akin to special editions of feature films more so than what we've been given on most other DVD sets of old TV programs. No one is more qualified than Roger Moore, of course, to spell out the connections between his past as "The Saint" and his future as James Bond in his work on The Persuaders . Equally informative is Robert Baker who had been one of the producers for The Saint. Baker had formed a production company with Moore, BaMoore, which had been responsible for The Saint's color years.

In the first commentary discussion, Baker and Moore revealed the first concept for The Persuaders had been a Saint episode in which Simon Templar had been paired with a Texas oilman. But Baker claimed Curtis had been signed as Baker liked the faster clip Bronx speech as opposed to a Southern drawl which would have slowed the pace of the show. At first, Moore claims, he didn't want to do another television series until ITV chief, Sir Lew Grade, told him, "Your country needs the money. Think of your Queen." Curtis too was drawn in by a lucrative paycheck although he had no experience with the demands of the shooting schedules needed to produce weekly dramas. As the show evolved, both actors enjoyed an on and off-screen friendship which included the show's use of frequent ab libs and Moore 's quitting smoking at the urging of Curtis. (Some sources state that Moore didn't entirely approve of many of Curtis' extra-curricular activities including a drug bust when Curtis arrived in England .)

The episodes themselves also demonstrate the care put into the show. In particular, the pilot, "Overture," established Lawrence Naismith's Judge Fulton as the grounding father figure, giving purpose and depth to the bantering glibness of the series' leads. In the opening teaser, he tells the audience that Sinclair and Wilde are "nitro and glycerin," useless by themselves, but potent together. He described himself as the fuse, and this point clarifies his place in the formula. In future episodes, he usually tricked the team into going around legal boundaries to achieve justice denied by the courts. Working covertly behind the scenes, Fulton most often conned the pair with the attractions of a luscious female guest-star.

"Overture" also showcased the almost feature-film production values of the prestigious program and the talents employed in its creation. For example, because of Johnny Goodman's family connections with the British CID, The Persuaders obtained permission to film at locations difficult to acquire at the time and impossible now such as 10 Downing Street and the Tower of London . Most settings were combinations of sets built at Pinewood Studios as well as location shots in England and the south of France. Bond composer John Barry only contributed the Russian-flavored title track, so other noteworthy scores were written by composers such as Tony Hatch, also responsible for the title theme for The Champions². The pilot script was written by Brian Clemens, a veteran of Danger Man, The Champions, and especially The Avengers, for which he was a principal writer in the last three seasons. Even the titles were crafted by spy show veterans, Chambers and Brothers, the same company who'd created the moving stick-figure title sequence for The Saint .

In his commentary for the episode, "A Time and Place," Moore discussed how he worked as both actor and director for two episodes, talking as much about camera angles and shots from car windows as the embarrassing flair bell-bottoms he wore. (Curtis made his own fashion statement by wearing knotted scarves and gloves in the series.) As director, Moore said he preferred to cast supporting roles from his friends rather than go through a casting office. For example, for "A Time and Place," he brought in Ian Hendry, one of the original Avengers and later co-star with Moore in the feature film, Vendetta for the Saint. In one of the Moore directed episodes, “Long Goodbye,” he cast his daughter, seven year old Deborah in a small role³. His son Geoffrey was seen as the young version of Brett Sinclair in the opening credit montage.

In his commentary, Moore paid special homage to film editor and director Peter Hunt who had contributed immeasurably to the style of the '60s Bond films, most notably On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Hunt not only influenced how Moore approached The Persuaders , he was one of many movie directors to direct an episode of the show. For Bond fans, Moore and his partners share other such trivia as pointing to one scene filmed in the home of 007 producer Harry Saltzman and the perils of filming high-performance cars such as Astin-Martins and Lotus Elans.

With all this to work with, was The Persuaders worthy of all these talents? While clearly a matter of taste, The Persuaders now seems like an interesting artifact of its era, a show enlivened with festive music inspired by Burt Bacharach but little in the way of original story-telling. Two episodes in a row, for example, used the device of cons using lookalikes to fool family members. In "Some One Like Me" Sinclair was brainwashed into thinking a double had been made of him before learning he'd been programmed to be an assassin in a nod to The Manchurian Candidate . (This episode is of special note as Bernard Lee played a small part several years before he became Moore's Secret Service boss, "M," in the Bond films.)

Roger Moore's James Bond has been described as "The Saint" with an expense account; to be fair, his Lord Brett Sinclair can be described as Simon Templar with a peerage and a partner. The Persuaders had more in common with The Saint than any James Bond outing as Sinclair and Wilde were independently wealthy vigilantes saving damsels in distress from blackmailers, smugglers, and swindlers far more often than acting as agents of opposing countries or covert organizations. In some adventures, such as "A Time and Place," they did save England by preventing a conspiracy from assassinating the Prime Minister and staging a coup d'etat. Often, they were drawn into adventures without any involvement with Judge Fulton such as the occasion when Wilde was mistaken for the paymaster of an East European spy network. In fact, many adventures began with Danny Wilde being in the wrong place at the wrong time inspiring a series of killers who tried to take him out. Throughout the series, the competitive and inept duo bumbled and bungled their way to success, always showing more bravado and pluck than skill or coordinated team-work. Well, both were equally adept at brawling, fisticuffs, burglary, and break-ins.

Thus, the show offered nothing new to television viewers and relied more on the draw of the stars and their personalities than innovative scripts. Then again, I presume few viewers turn on spy TV expecting fresh storylines. And, like fans of I Spy --another series noted for ad libs and snappy dialogue--aficionados of The Persuaders note the stories were incidental to the show. It was the interplay between Curtis and Moore that gave the series its warmth and wit.

Compared with other similar series of the decade, The Persuaders holds up quite well thirty years later. Because of the attention to setting, musical backgrounds, and a continuity overseen by the excellent Terry Nation, each episode does have the look and feel of a well-budgeted if short movie. It's important to remember the series short life in America was due to the fact it was aired against Mission:Impossible when that show was enjoying a comeback with a refurbished new cast. While many Americans missed out, The Persuaders had a large international following. For example, it was reportedly hugely popular when it first aired in Australia where it was re-broadcast in recent years on pay TV. But the show's success depended on the all-American audience then watching another spy series that had even bested The Avengers, at least in terms of Emmys.

While perhaps not classic TV, The Persuaders is better than its reputation and is entertaining tongue-in-cheek light-comedy. It is indeed worthy of the attention given to its first run and to this collection of neglected episodes. Saint and Bond fans should not miss checking out The Persuaders. Any spy fan will find delights enough to make purchasing at least this first set worthy of their collections.

Notes

1. Further details not repeated here are in my Spy Television (Praeger, 2004) and in my forthcoming The Encyclopedia of TV Spies (Bear Manor Media).

2. For information about one extended reworking of The Persuaders theme, see the "Collecting TV Spy Music" file at www.spywise.net.

3. A grownup Deborah Moore appeared as a flight attendant in the Bond film, Die Another Day, in a scene with many other 007 references that break the fourth wall. In the scene, Deborah Moore provided Pierce Brosnan's Bond with a martini while he read a magazine article about mysterious magnate Gustav Graves. The article's byline is by Gregg Wilson, the son of producer Michael G. Wilson. The article also has a pull quote that reads: "Diamonds Are Forever, But Life Isn't," Graves Says. the latter is at the very bottom of the screen and viewers have to be looking for it. Such moments contributed to the flavor of the 20th Bond movie celebrating 40 years of the series.