The Avengers (TV Series) Quick-Quick Slow Death (1966) User Reviews

A dance of death

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 30 January 2015]

As this episode opens we see a man pushing a pram; while he stops to make a telephone call the brake slips and the pram rolls down the hill. He chases it but is hit by a car and the pram tips over spilling the body of a man onto the road! The injured man is a known enemy agent but nobody knows who the dead man was. The only clue is a tattoo and his ill-fitting suit. These clues lead Steed and Mrs Peel to the tattooist, the tailor and then via a bank and shoemaker to identify the man as Arthur Peever. They also lead to a dance school where a man claiming to be Peever attends. In order to find out what is going on Mrs Peel gets a job as an instructor at the school and Steed poses as a man who has just returned to the country and enrols in the school. Here they learn that men without anybody who is likely to miss them are being bumped off and replaced with enemy agents.

This episode had a great opening; while most people will guess that the pram doesn't contain a baby I'm sure most won't think it contained a man… I don't think a man could really fit in it but that didn't matter. The trail followed to identify him was entertaining; I particularly liked the 'Italian' shoemaker whose accent disappears when he shouts to his assistant; the fact that his interest in Mrs Peel's feet not exactly professional was also amusing. Once in the dance studio things were a little weaker although still entertaining; the drunken conductor was particularly funny… especially when we learn the music is on a tape. Overall I'd say that while this isn't a classic episode it is fun enough and does include a few really good moments.

Quick-Quick Slow Death

[guswhovian · 7/10 · 31 July 2020]

When foreign agent Willi Fehr is caught trying to dispose of a body that is wearing an ill-fitting evening suit, Steed and Mrs Peel follow the trail to a dance school.

Quick-Quick Slow Death is a definite improvement on The Thirteenth Hole. There's many wonderful scenes, from the scene of the body in the baby carriage to the scene with Mrs Peel and the Italian shoe designer.

The guest cast is not as good as usual, but Eunice Gayson (Sylvia Trench in the early James Bond's) is good as the villain.

Dancing on the edge.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 8 July 2022]

When a foreign agent is caught trying to dispose of a dead body in bizarre circumstances, Steed and Mrs Peel try to learn the identity of the dead man.

I enjoyed this, arguably it's not one of the strongest episodes from the first series, but it is a huge improvement over the last episode, and has some wonderfully memorable moments.

The scene in the shoe shop, where Mrs Peel encounters Piedi, was an absolute joy fest, genuinely hilarious, and in keeping with the tone of the episode. I also thoroughly enjoyed that bizarre opening, not the baby I was expecting to see.

There's some definite depth to this store, once you see past the fancy window dressing, there's more going on than you'd first think, well written by Robert Banks Stewart.

Eunice Gayson and Maurice Kaufmann were terrific here, each played their parts incredibly well, and both certainly looked the part. John Woodnutt was hilarious as Captain Noble.

Great to know that tattooists had a place even back in 1969, it's 2022, and I don't think I know many people that don't have one or two.

Enjoyed it, 7/10.

The last waltz

[ShadeGrenade · 9/10 · 15 August 2013]

Robert Banks Stewart, who later created 'Shoestring' and 'Bergerac' for the B.B.C., wrote a number of the Emma Peel 'Avengers' shows, of which 'Quick-Quick Slow Death' is one. I would not personally describe it as a classic episode, but it has good things in it. It opens with a road accident; enemy agent 'Willi Fehr' ( Michael Peake ) is hit by a car while chasing a runaway pram. Inside it is a man's corpse, which Fehr had been in the process of disposing of. The usual trail of clues leads 'Steed' ( Patrick Macnee ) and 'Emma Peel' ( Diana Rigg ) to the culprits, in this case, a dancing school, run by one 'Lucille Banks' ( Eunice Gayson, whom 'James Bond' fans will recognise as 'Sylvia Trench' from the first two 007 pictures ). The school is bumping off lonely male clients and replacing them with impostors. What makes this so much fun are the various characters our heroes meet along the way; 'Arthur Piedl' ( David Kernan from 'That Was The Week That Was' ), a Cockney shoe-seller who changes his accent to Italian the same way Peter Sellers' character did in 'The Wrong Arm Of The Law', and Larry Cross as inebriated band-leader 'Chester Read' ( who conducts even though his music is coming from a tape recorder ).

Things To Look Out For - 'Ivor Bracewell', played by the late Maurice Kaufmann, who at the time was married to Honor Blackman, a.k.a. 'Cathy Gale.

John Woodnutt - who plays 'Captain Noble' - was 'Hibbert' in the 'Dr.Who' classic 'Spearhead From Space'.

Speaking of 'Dr.Who', an idea from this episode seems to have found its way into the second Peter Cushing 'Dalek' movie, namely, Steed opening an office door and suddenly finding that the room beyond has been completely demolished, leaving him hanging in mid-air. In 'Daleks: Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.', it happened to 'Tom Campbell' ( Bernard Cribbins ).

Dancing with danger

[kevinolzak · 6/10 · 3 March 2011]

"Quick-Quick Slow Death" is definitely one episode where the plot is secondary, and was the third not to be shown in the US. A plot about infiltration through a dancing school could only work in this format, led by beautiful Eunice Gayson, best known as Sylvia Trench, the first girl bedded by James Bond in both "Dr. No" and "From Russia with Love." Graham Armitage returned for "The Correct Way to Kill," David Kernan returned for "Never, Never Say Die," and James Belchamber returned for "Get-A-Way!" (Charles Hodgson had already appeared in "Double Danger"). Making his only appearance on the show is veteran screen villain Maurice Kaufmann, then husband of Honor Blackman ('Cathy Gale' herself), while Carole Gray, a frequent presence in horrors like "Devils of Darkness," "Curse of the Fly," "The Brides of Fu Manchu," and "Island of Terror," would only total six other credits in her brief but memorable career.

A Vanished World

[lucyrfisher · 17 December 2015]

I wish ballroom dancing still existed... it vanished rather abruptly in a few years after this episode was filmed. Both Steed and Emma are rather good at it - I wonder where they learned? Diana at RADA, McNee in musical comedy? McNee is particularly funny as the man whose girlfriend was eaten by a crocodile and his no family or friends. The man in the pram idea was used in One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (a few years later). The drunk band leader is not funny at all, and "Mr Piedi" is extremely creepy. I first came across the "central character lured to door that leads nowhere" in a Margery Allingham detective story written in the 30s (Flowers for the Judge). It turns up again in 32 Paces to Baker Street (50s), where a blind man is lured to a bombed building with no facade. Robert Banks Stewart - love him! Any relation to Nancy Banks Smith?

Quick-Quick Slow death

[coltras35 · 7/10 · 6 December 2023]

A man pushing a pram is horrified when it gets away from him down a hill but when it tips over, a corpse falls out. Steed and Emma investigate, but all their leads end up dead. They finally follow the trail to a dancing school and Mrs Peel gets hired as an instructress. The studio is being used to acquire identities for infiltrating enemy spies - they dispose of students with no family or friends and replace them with sleeper agents.

More zany eccentric characters feature, like the tattooist and his garlic sausage ("What is home without a moth?"), and Piedi the Italian shoemaker gushing over Emma's "two pairs of foot." He was hilarious. Very apt title - and very inspiring to set it in a dance school, where, beyond paso-dobles and two-stepping, something murky is afoot. Loved the dead man in the pram bit in the beginning- more quirky fun. Eunice Grayson ( Bond films) and Carole Gray ( The Young Ones) also star.

Shall we dance?

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 22 October 2008]

The usual capricious nonsense, this time about a school of ballroom dancing that recruits lonely bachelors as students and then bumps them off at graduation and replaces each with a foreign agent. Steed enrolls as a client. Mrs. Peel gets a job as instructor. Clues include a rose tattoo and a garlic sausage. Bizarre, yes.

This episode has two things going for it, in addition to its intrinsic appeal. One is that Emma Peel's bare foot is cast in plaster in order to create a pair of hand-made dancing pumps. The man at the shoe shop casts Mrs. Peel's foot but not before examining it with a fetishist's fascination. He speaks in a fey continental accent to the foot as he caresses it, scolding the toes for speaking to him, "Naughty chatterboxes." The second is the studio's alcoholic band leader. There are few people who can play drunks on the screen while making them both funny and believable but this guy is one of them -- maybe his name is Larry Cross. In the neighborhood of roles like this, Lee Marvin is his only neighbor that I'm aware of. He stumbles precariously around. He smiles but in a way that signals confusion. His every word must be completed by someone else.

It's all pretty amusing.