Re: [Avengers] "Epic". S05-E11

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Directed by James Hill

Steed catches a falling star
Emma makes a movie

Two washed-up old matinee idols, Damita Syn (Isa Miranda) and
Stewart Kirby (Peter Wyngarde) audition an actor resembling Steed
(Anthony Dawes) for their director, Z.Z. von Schnerk (Kenneth J
Warren); it's a non-speaking part - a corpse, as Kirby shoots him
with a revolver.
Steed rings Mrs Peel's bell, but she tells him she is "already
needed, elsewhere", summoned to a remote country lane by an
anonymous telephone call. Steed tags along, fearing a trap, but only
an old priest on a bicycle disrupts the blustery calm of the
country. The priest is in fact Kirby in disguise and he's just
filmed Mrs Peel. Steed and Emma return to her flat and listen to her
recording of the 'phone call - Steed has a vague recollection of the
voice but can't quite place it; he arranges a dinner date with her
that evening and leaves. Meanwhile, Schnerk likes her screen test
and approves of Emma as the star of his new film.

Kirby sabotages Mrs Peel's Lotus, then appears in the lane,
disguised as a cabbie dropping off an old woman - Damita in
disguise. Mrs Peel hops in and when she realises they're going the
wrong way, Kirby turn on a canister of knock-out gas and delivers
her to Stage 4 of Schnerk Studios (actually Pinewood). Schnerk re-
electrifies the fence and gate after they enter. Emma comes to
later, apparently in her flat, but soon discovers it's a film set,
as is the Lotus and street 'outside'. Kirby passes in the cab and
she sets off in pursuit, arriving at a church set with a bridal
Rolls Royce outside, a wedding invitation on its bonnet and wedding
bells pealing. She sees a vicar on a hill beckoning - Kirby again -
and he pushes her down the other side. She gets up to see the Rolls
Royce is now a hearse, a single tailor tolling for a funeral. Kirby
drives off in the hearse saying, "we're waiting for you, Mrs Peel"
and all the gravestones are revealed to have her name on them.

Emma sees the dead actor, at first thinking he's Steed, then
encounters Damita casually knitting a scarf, dressed in a Grecian
robe and sitting on a throne. She confronts her about the actor when
Kirby bursts in, dressed as Alexander the Great, and attacks his
'evil little sister', Emma. Emma gets the upper hand in the fight,
but Damita hits her on the head and knocks her out.
Emma comes to later, lying on a bed with a holster strapped to her
thigh. She finds Kirby waiting for her, dressed as a bandit propping
up a Wild West bar and he challenges her to a quick draw duel. She
draws first and he falls melodramatically, she checks the 'corpse'
and leaves, confused, without spotting Syn and Schnerk filming from
a nearby platform. Schnerk is ecstatic about what will be his
masterpiece - a compendium of all his previous works.

Steed arrives at Emma's flat and is worried by her absence - he
plays back the recording again and again, trying to jog his memory.
Schnerk meanwhile tells his 'puppets' he wants to open up the film,
and the stage door opens onto the film lot. Mrs Peel emerges - to a
hail of machine gun fire from Kirby, dressed as a WWI German
officer. She runs from him, only to encounter Damita coming the
other way, dressed as a hussar. Next, it's a red indian Kirby with a
tomahawk that she defeats, after discovering the gun she has
contains blanks. "You're supposed to win, Kirby!", screams Schnerk,
hastily writing 'pink pages' for a script revision. He watches the
rushes in disgust and orders a reshoot and plans the climax - the
real death of Emma Peel.
Emma meanwhile encounters a policeman on a bicycle and shows him
the dead actor - a confused Schnerk sees them and says he didn't
cast a policeman. "I'll write him in, and then I'll write him out
again!" Sadly, the policeman is a former film extra reliving his
glory days and can't believe Emma's there in deadly earnest. He
refuses to heed Emma's warnings, not wanting to miss his chance of a
scene with Stewart Kirby, and is killed.

Steed finally remembers the voice - a recollection of Hamlet's
soliloquy by Kirby - when Emma encounters a US Civil War remake of
the Alexander scene, with Kirby playing a returned Southerner. This
time, Emma anticipates Damita's strike, but is knocked out by Kirby
instead. Schnerk decides the film has reached its climax, "where the
diabolical arch fiend reveals his terrifying purpose" - and promptly
does just that, telling Mrs Peel they're making a movie with her the
star, but it's a downbeat piece in which the heroine dies. A
tragedy, a drama, that will place him forever among the ranks of the
immortal movie makers - "Confusion, desperation, fear, horror...
death, and all of authentic." He chose Mrs Peel because of her
unique combination of courage and beauty for his magnum opus, "The
Destruction of Emma Peel", a Z.Z. von Schnerk pro-DUCTION! (Emma
does an impression of the MGM lion).

Steed arrives at the studio and finds a way over the fence, using a
cinematography ladder, while inside Mrs Peel has been strapped to
the bench of a band saw in true silent movie villain style. A
swinging pendulum and gruesome decor set the scene for Kirby and
Syn, dressed as frankensteinian ghouls, to menace her. "I think I'm
in danger of becoming a split personality", she quips, looking at
the saw. Schnerk stops Damita from turning on the saw - "we only
have one chance at that!" - and films a closeup of them gloating
over her. "Gloat all you like," says Emma, "but just remember I'm
the star of this picture".
Schnerk sends Kirby and Syn to fetch the dead actor from the other
set, but Steed has found a shooting script and replaces the body
while they find a wheelchair with which to transport it. Schnerk
starts the saw, and starts filming to a piano accompaniment just
before they return but Steed causes chaos when he calmly stands up
and turns it off again. He defeats Damita and Kirby, then Schnerk
fires his revolver at him. Steed flings his trusty brolly into the
lid of Schnerk's piano, trapping his gun arm and he frees Mrs Peel
in the nick of time. He struggles with Schnerk, whose gun goes off,
killing the director, who makes one last cry of "CUT! PRINT!" before
collapsing.
Mrs Peel tells Steed her favourite bit was where Kirby hit Syn with
a chair, and demonstrates - except she's used a real chair by
mistake, and Steed drops to the floor.

Steed and Emma sit in her armchairs, deciding which film to see that
night: "I was Napoleon's Nanny"? (maybe not), "Lasagne 6½"? ('I
walked out 3/8 of the way through'), an old Stewart Kirby film at
the Plaza? (Emma frowns), "Nights of Abandon" - unbridled passion,
critics raved, won many awards... closed yesterday. "Oh dear", says
Steed, "...unbridled passions - why don't we just spend the evening
at home?" "Why not?" concurs Emma, "Let's get back to my apartment."
She kicks at the wall and it collapses - they're still at the
studio.



--
Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.

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