Requiem For 'The Persuaders!' — Pinnacle of 1970’s Big Budget TV Flops, a Half-Century Later

ITC’s Swan Song Is Gone, But Also Forgotten...Does It Deserve To Be?

The mismatched buddy UK/USA “special relationship” comic action-adventure espionage series The Persuaders!, starring Tony Curtis & Roger Moore as billionaire vigilante Robin Hood types, ran for one extremely expensive television season in 1971-72.

“The Persuaders! was the final, most ambitious and expensive of [ITC’s] international action-adventure television series. At a cost of £2.5 million per episode [roughly $22 million today], it was the most expensive television series ever produced up to that time. Hollywood industry trade Bible Variety called it ‘a highly entertaining mix of action and comedy,’ and predicted it could win the Nielsen Ratings battle vs. Mission: Impossible. But the series proved too ‘European’ for American audiences, and it was taken off the air in the USA after 20 of its 24 filmed episodes were aired.” — James Chapman, Saints & Avengers: British Adventure Series of the 1960s

“Nobody knows anything.” — William Goldman

£ £ £ £ £ £

You know what’s really pissing off Woke Hollywood? Not only that all their stuff sucks lemons and is failing commercially big time, but that all of us whom they hate so much are having such a glorious experience watching them go down in ignominious flames of floptastic fiascos. Karma, thy name is schadenfreude!

The past year has been stunning and unprecedented in its parade of expensive duds. Our ongoing American Apocalypse amalgamation of enlightenment and annihilation has led to the face-planting release of the biggest and most high-profile bombs in television and film history: Amazon’s one-two punch to its own face with Rings of Power and Citadel. Warner Brothers Discovery’s they/them flush The Flash. Disney Lucasfilm’s zombie Indiana Jones & the Insufferable Sidekick. 

But there’s already a ton of people talking and writing about all that, including yours truly once in a while. But you know me (don’t you, by this point?), I’m always the guy who’d rather zag while everybody else is zigging. 

Thus, with the Hollywood writers and actors strikes threatening to continue until the Woke untalented majority of emotionally stunted retards and half-people in their unions start dying of starvation or at least leave the industry to find something less psychologically abusive and society-degenerating to do with their lives, I’ve been trying to suss out cheap, interesting and obscure entertainments in my Sigma Male wheelhouse to recommend to others so we can keep the escapist fires aflame while Tinseltown burns to ashes like a vvicked vvitch at the stake.

I’m always on the lookout for unfairly neglected stuff, things I re-discover before anybody else, so I took a flyer on the once heavily-hyped, now obscure 1971 action-adventure series The Persuaders! (Yes, it comes with the “!”), starring future 007 Roger Moore and past Oscar-nominee Tony Curtis. The entire series is on YouTube for free in 720p. 

The two men were on opposing ends of their career arcs: Moore was about to become a Movie Star, landing the plumb James Bond role to replace Sean Connery after Aussie model George Lazenby whiffed; Curtis was making a splashy foray into episodic television after a two-decade career as a Movie Star that hadn’t gone so well the past five years of it. 

The most expensive show in the history of television at the time, The Persuaders! ran for only one very pricey globetrotting 24 episode season, under the creative watch of the storied UK studio ITC Entertainment. It made a little money but not nearly as much as was expected; The Persuaders! was the highest rated television show on the planet everywhere…except in the UK where it was a middling Top 20 hit and USA, where it bombed (slated against Mission: Impossible), one of the lowest-rated shows of the 1971-72 television season (73rd out of 78 — yikes!).

If you took that Nielsen rating for The Persuaders!, among the lowest rated series of 1971-72, and transplanted it to right now, it would be the highest-rated episodic series on network television. Also, while the Woke weirdos continue their scREEEEEEEching about “diversity” and how segregated and racist America has always been, please note that two of the top 10 shows a half-century back starred black men: The Flip Wilson Show and Sanford & Son.

Moore — who had publicly declared he wasn’t going to do another TV show after eight years playing Simon Templar in The Saint, one of the highest rated series internationally throughout the 1960s — was persuaded to do a single season, in a handshake agreement with Sir Lew Grade, head of ITC, who made Moore a never-disclosed financial offer he couldn’t refuse and that proved impossible to turn down. 

Moore left after the first year to take over the James Bond role. As there was already debate over whether to continue the series solely for the foreign dollars and throw in the towel on America, Moore’s departure for greener career fields and pussy galore made the point moot and the show was cancelled.

Fifty-plus years ago, The Persuaders! was supposed to be the mostest, bestest, top o’ the pops-est creation yet from ITC Entertainment, the specialists in tell-a-vision action escapism in the swinging sixties: ITC titles best known a half-century later are The Avengers, The Saint, The Prisoner, Danger Man (called Secret Agent in the USA), Space: 1999. But there were at least a dozen more that ran a single or couple seasons: The Professionals, The Baron, Department S, Man in a Suitcase, etc., etc. 

So ITC had been churning out this kind of dapper espionage thing for more than a decade and The Persuaders! was meant to be the height of their oeuvre, bigger and better, evolving from swinging sixties series into sleeker seventies film(-ish). The new show had the biggest budget, the biggest stars and luxurious location shooting around Europe. It hired experienced film directors, like Hammer’s multiple-genre journeyman Val Guest, best known for two seminal 1950s sci-fi films with Brian Donlevy as Prof. Bernard Quartermass; Roy Ward Baker, who helmed the original TITANIC film epic, A Night to Remember; 007 editor-turned-director Peter Hunt (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service); etc.

Though in the hindsight of history The Avengers and The Prisoner have surpassed it as cultural icons, The Saint was the most successful of all ITC’s action-adventure programs, the most popular television series internationally throughout the 1960s. But don’t sleep on the single-season Department S, about a secret division of Interpol that investigates seemingly unsolvable supernatural incidents, much like The X-Files. Let’s also note that The Saint, The Avengers and The Prisoner (my favorite TV series ever) have all been “re-imagined” in the past couple decades and they’ve all suuuuuuucked (I’m looking at you, Jim Caviezel!).

I was mildly excited to see The Persuaders!. Talent all around, in front and behind the camera! Real film directors! Rejected by the rabble! 

Then I watched the first two episodes and thought they were pretty meh. Perfunctory script, flashy but dated direction and music, no chemistry between the two actors. 

The series pilot, titled “Overture,” felt forced (like TV pilots too often do) — wealthy retired judge recruits two bored billionaires who share a taste for adventure to fix situations the judge considers broken and outside the law: Danny Wilde, a wise-cracking American, molded by his rough upbringing in the NYC slums, who served in the U.S. Navy before becoming an oil magnate; and Lord Brett Rupert George Robert Andrew Sinclair (!), an erudite and unflappable British nobleman, educated at Oxford and Harrow, who served as a British Army Officer before becoming a professional race car driver. If I need to tell you who played who, this might not be the Substack for you.

The good reviews for the show said its best points were the comedy and chemistry of the two stars, but I found little of either in S01E01 and S01E02. So I tooled around on the internet some, and found three episodes that were consistently mentioned as the best. They were a lot better and highly enjoyable and worth hunting down. Then there were two more that were also considered good and I guess they were. After that I watched a couple more and 10 was enough. My guess is that there are maybe a half-dozen high-quality escapist period entertainment episodes of The Persuaders! that showcase what the show should be. 

The biggest problem with The Persuaders! is that I don’t think the chemistry between Moore and Curtis is ever all that great, and the best episodes I’ve seen has each of them working solo for at least half an episode’s 52 minutes, which should tell you something. 

The two actors don’t seem to be in artistic agreement about what kind of show this is: Moore is all smooth talk and light-handed comedy, Noel Coward dressing room banter with occasional gunplay; Curtis plays it like farce, as if nothing needs to be taken seriously because he sure doesn’t. 

Moore is great, he’s never looked better, not even as James Bond, such a remarkably handsome man, and his light touch here skates over the material, a slight riff outward from The Saint’s Simon Templar, except even more unruffled, the arched eyebrow working overtime. This is a pro playing a pro, a paycheck role but not a walkthrough; the actor knows why he’s there and delivers exactly what’s expected because he’s typecast to do what he’s doing and we like him when he does it, because what we like about him is what got him typecast in the first place.

Curtis’s performance is the bigger WTF, because there’s a lot to praise about it and it’s a lot more interesting than Moore’s, though “more interesting” doesn’t mean better. He does all his own stunts, and there are some impressive ones, like jumping from a moving car onto an oil truck when both are traveling on a highway pretty damn fast; he also does all his fight scenes (which Moore clearly does not), including a nasty brawl outdoors that roams from forest to gully and is unexpectedly realistically violent considering the series’ light-hearted tone. 

Tony Curtis did all his own stunts in The Persuaders!

But Curtis also cruises through a lot of the episodes like it’s a lark for the actor more than the character when it should be vice-versa. He gives off the air that it’s all a big joke, which the show kinda is, fair enough, but he shouldn’t let on that he’s aware of it. It’s the performance from a guy who thinks he’s still a big Movie Star and TV is film’s slightly retarded little brother. 

Curtis was an oddball on set, too. You can find varying stories about how well Moore and Curtis got along or didn’t, ranging from mutual professional admiration at best to not at all at worst. Moore was the utmost professional, the impeccable British thespian, but Curtis was a stoner and smoking weed all the time — there are episodes when his eyes are total slits, though his vocal delivery remains spirited — and he had something like a fetish for wearing gloves. If you watch The Persuaders! you notice Curtis is almost always wearing gloves, all show, every show, even in situations where you might think they’d be inappropriate or a little weird. Okay, more than a little weird.

If you like gear-porn, each of our heroes drives a distinctive early-1970s sports car: Curtis in a sleek hot red Ferrari Dino 246 GT, while Moore rocked a gold Aston Martin DBS. The highlight of the pilot is the two men facing off in a mano-a-mano race along the coast of the French Riviera.

Along with the spicy cars, the series is also loaded with Beautiful People. The two leads of course, but also a parade of alluring actresses, including a couple you’ll recognize like Joan Collins and Susan George, and many more lost to history, including the knockout blond Catherine Schell but especially the lovely, pale blue-eyes, plush-lipped Rosemary Nichols, who really turned my head with a headstrong performance in one of the better episodes, maybe the best, which featured a big old mansion, secret passageways, underground tunnels and a bunch of other fun mystery stuff. Wait…they had strong female characters in the early 1970s? Who had their own agency but also enjoyed being attractive to men? Who knew?

Cars and Girls! If you like hot cars and hotter women — femme fatales, action heroines, damsels in distress; a triumvirate of fictional female fantasies, basically — The Persuaders! has a lot going for it. Center, Ferrari faces off vs. Aston Martin. Clockwise from top right: Joan Collins, Catherine Schell, Susan George & the divine Rosemary Nichols.

There are also the usual collection of familiar faces from other ITC shows, if you’ve had that experience, like Darren Nesbitt, a name I recognized as one of the #2’s who plagued #6 in The Prisoner. But there are a ton of others; ITC had a stable of supporting players and they pop up over and over again in guest roles throughout varying series.

Ultimately, The Persuaders! isn’t worth more time than I’ve already given it, so I’ll start making my way towards the exit and recommend the five best episodes out of the ten or so I’ve seen. Like I said, they’re free, they’ve got Movie Stars and other Beautiful People, they look like movies not TV, and they’re mildly entertaining, especially as a snapshot of Western entertainment when the culture was shifting from the swinging sixties to the disco (then punk) seventies:

“Overture” - The first episode introduces the characters and boasts that terrific car race along the French Riviera. It’s the weakest of the five here, though, so stick with it, and if you only plan to sample one, this ain’t it.

“Greensleeves” - Brit blueblood Brett discovers an old country estate that used to belong to his family has been taken over by charlatans and he infiltrates their circle to figure out what’s up. Probably my favorite episode, good plot twists, dual identities, secret passageways and the yummy Miss Nichols. 

“Chain Of Events” - Through a kooky mixup, Danny finds himself handcuffed to a spy’s briefcase, making him the target of British, US and Russian agents. Highlight is a very realistic fight scene, with Curtis at his best.

“Element of Risk” - Another mixup leaves Danny mistaken for an international terrorist who’s masterminding a gold heist. Comic and twisty, more fun than exciting but a good time; a caper that turns into a sting.

“A Death in the Family” - Brett’s bloodline is being knocked off, though nobody seems to take it very seriously. Roger Moore plays four different roles, including cross-dressing as a wealthy aunt.

That’s about it. Not sure how many of you give a shit and I don’t blame you if you don’t, but it can get to be a demoralizing drag constantly writing de-occulting stuff about how we’re ruled by psychopathic murderous satanic pedophiles, y’know? Look into the abyss, it looks back, etc., etc. We all need to embrace escapism so we don’t go mad, my Muse included! Just make sure you keep it in moderation, and The Persuaders! is very moderate entertainment indeed.

CAREER PEAKS — Roger Moore’s is easy: The Spy Who Loved Me, one of the very best 007 movies, with arguably the top pre-credits opening in the franchise (did M:I 7 kinda swipe it?), gimmicky gadgets and cool car, megalomaniac villain with formidable henchman, and the hottest Bond girl ever in Barbara Bach — gorgeous, sexy, smart, capable, deadly, naked in the shower — and there’s no argument about that. Tony Curtis’s career is a lot tougher: I love Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, but he’s miscast with that Bronx accent; he got an Oscar-nomination for Best Actor in The Defiant Ones, which is a good film but pretty dated now; he’s supposedly great as a serial killer in the real-life crime docudrama The Boston Strangler, but I’ve never seen it. That leaves his sleazebag performance as a morally bankrupt NYC PR hack in the excoriating film noir about corrupt journalists and the public relations manipulators who enable them, The Sweet Smell of Success. It’s among the elite films on the short list of the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” The acerbic and nasty/funny dialog is classic, and the subject matter surrounding a bunch of narcissistic parasites in the media biz remains relevant today!