The Avengers (TV Series) The £50,000 Breakfast (1967) User Reviews

A more serious story than expected

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 5 March 2015]

In the opening scene we see a man apparently talking to a child as he drives through the countryside; it is only after he crashes that we learn he was talking to a ventriloquist's dummy. We soon learn something else about him; an X-ray reveals that he was smuggling £50,000 worth of diamonds in his stomach. The man worked for a successful city firm run by a reclusive millionaire; Steed can't get into see him but one of his senior employees claims that the injured man had stolen the gems. The only other clue is the presence of dog hairs on his clothing; hairs that come from the same breed as the recluse's butler has been seen walking. When the injured man is murdered it becomes obvious that somebody at the firm doesn't want him to talk; we don't know if he is working alone at this point though.

Watching the opening scene I thought we were going to get another somewhat surreal episode due to the presence of the doll; it turns out that the doll is almost irrelevant to the story… in fact this is one of the series' most realistic stories. The villains aren't diabolical fiends hoping to take over the country; they are merely trying to make a lot of money. Yolande Turner does a fine job as Miss Pegram, a woman who has broken through the glass ceiling but still wants more and Cecil Parker is equally good as butler Glover; a man who has been polite all his life but plans to start being rude once he gets his hands his share of the company's money. There are fun minor characters too; most notably the car driver's wife and the young lady Mrs Peel talks to in a tie shop. There is a twist regarding the reclusive company owner and the identity of the occupant of a grave in a pet cemetery although it won't surprise too many viewers… I quite liked this as it didn't seem like a twist for the sake of having a twist; rather the actions of villains seeing an opportunity to make a lot of money. Overall an enjoyable if more serious episode.

Portent of Things to Come.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 4 January 2009]

A man dies in a car accident and 50,000 pounds worth of diamonds are found in his stomach. It's Steed's and Mrs. Peel's job to find out where they came from and where they were headed. The story involves a couple of Russian wolf hounds, a cigar-aficionado club, something about a high-end necktie shop, a financier who has been murdered and buried in a pet cemetery and assorted villains, all of them colorful.

The usual sly wit is always there. When the diamonds are discovered in the dead man's gut, the radiologist remarks that the breakfast was "high in carats, low in calories." Steed informs Mrs. Peel that the victim's father had been a sword swallower and fire eater in the circus and that "obviously he inherited the talent." Mrs. Peel: "Perhaps he just enjoyed a rich diet."

In the tie shop, the sales girl shows Mrs. Peel about and describes the various items of neckwear. "This tie is for the Anonyon Club." Expatiate, please? Well, there are "old boy" ties for Etonians and Harrovians and this tie is for those who have never attended public school -- the anonymous.

One of the heavies, a super-polite butler and dog-walker, is played deliciously by Cecil Parker. When his participation in the smuggling scheme is uncovered, Parker reveals that blackmail wouldn't work against him because the dead financier's will had left him eleven million pounds. An astonished Steed asks why, then, did he do it? He did it because he wanted the power. He wanted a chance to be rude, especially to women. "In fact, sir, I expect to be RUDE to a considerable number of HANDSOME WOMEN."

If you haven't seen any episodes of the series yet, you must understand that the delivery of lines like these is entirely serious. There's no laugh track and no one chuckles at anyone else's gags. Ditto for the action sequences, which tend to be fast and animated but perfunctory. A good, solid backhand from Mrs. Peel will knock a man out. But the combat scenes aren't presented as amusing. A good deal of furniture is smashed but no one slips on a banana peel.

The £50,000 Breakfast

[guswhovian · 7/10 · 15 September 2020]

When a ventriloquist involved in a car crash if found to have a stomach full of diamonds, Steed and Mrs Peel investigate a reclusive Armenian businessman.

The £50,000 Breakfast is an oddity: it starts like an episode of Department S (a supposedly unexplainable event) and than plays out like an episode of The Saint. If definitely odd for an episode of The Avengers at this point to have such a serious tone.

However, the episode is very enjoyable and well written. The villains are especially memorable, particularly Cecil's Parker butler Glover. Anneke Wills has a bit part as a shop assistant.

Remake of "Death of a Great Dane"

[kevinolzak · 6/10 · 23 March 2011]

"The 50,000 Breakfast" is the third and last remake of a Cathy Gale episode that, like the original, was the weakest of the three. Switching the gender of the central character creates more of a spark this time, and the superior production values far surpass the sloppy original. A ventriloquist is injured in a minor crash, discovered to have diamonds in his stomach; later, he is unceremoniously killed in his hospital bed. Steed does most of the bargaining while Emma visits the widow (Pauline Delany, "The Golden Eggs"). Yolande Turner ("The Girl from Auntie" and "How to Succeed....at Murder") has a field day as Miss Pegram, assisted by Cecil Parker, replacing John Laurie in fine style. Also appearing are David Langton ("The Mauritius Penny" and "November Five"), Cardew Robinson ("The Interrogators"), Jon Laurimore ("Honey for the Prince"), Richard Owens ("Who Was That Man I Saw You With?"), Nigel Lambert ("The Master Minds"), and Anneke Wills ("Dressed to Kill"), who at the time was married to Michael Gough.

Blood on the Glass Ceiling

[laika-lives · 10/10 · 12 May 2006]

Towards the end of Diana Rigg's run on 'The Avengers', many episodes began to acquire a slightly darker, more melancholy tone than what had become typical for the series by this point. Whilst the earliest colour episodes were full of brilliantly played but two-dimensional eccentrics who were bumped off in amusing ways, episodes like 'The Joker', 'Death's Door', 'Return of the Cybernauts' and 'Murdersville' began to suggest that there was real blood in these character's veins, and having it spilt all over the floor might not be that funny. 'The £50,000 Breakfast' is, like 'The Joker', a rewrite of an earlier episode ('Don't Look Behind You') and naturally brings with it a darker flavour more typical of the series' early years, before terminal whimsy set in. The character of Mrs Rhodes has the dubious distinction of being the only woman to be murdered in the colour episodes.

The real strength of 'The £50,000 Breakfast' are its villains. Rather than diabolical masterminds with improbably-themed schemes to blackmail the country or release devastation into the streets, they're simply a quartet of fraudsters who saw an opportunity and took it. Yolande Turner's magnificently brittle Miss Pegrum is one of the real beneficiaries of the series' newly rediscovered sense of character. In a few scenes, she and the script work together to convey the frustration of an intelligent, ambitious woman thwarted by sexism and the 'old boy' network. For a series that revolutionised the depiction of women in pop culture, its surprising that 'The Avengers' actually addressed the subject of gender politics very rarely (and the one episode which took it as the central theme, the similarly corporate 'How to Succeed... at Murder', is - of course - the most sexist episode of the series). Miss Pegrum must be content with being the woman behind the man - until she has a brainwave. It's easier to be the power behind the throne if there's no-one sitting in it... (Whoopi Goldberg would realise the same thing years later in 'The Associate'). Of course, this is still the high-fantasy world of 'The Avengers', so Miss Pegrum can also take on Mrs Peel in an outrageous, high-kicking brawl - whilst wearing high heels and a skirt-suit. Interestingly, the male villains attempt to slip out quietly. The poor woman is undermined by the failings of her male colleagues yet again.

The other great villain is Cecil Parker, in a wonderful guest turn as a butler. His motivation, both very funny and yet oddly creepy in the implied misogyny, may be the single greatest motive for a villain in the series - or anywhere else, to be honest. It's a wonderful example of the pettiness of the downtrodden (you have to wonder if Miss Pegrum fed into it at all) and a good illustration of the way the series taps into English class tensions with greater subtlety than it is often credited for.

These wonderful performances (and others - Anneke Wills as the cute and kooky Judy is particularly good) are all wrapped up in the series' usual strengths - a strong sense of visual storytelling (check out the arc shot around the crashed car at the beginning, or Mrs Peel framed in the tie-shop window, and begin to understand that this was the best directed television show of the 1960's) and a witty, witty script (by Roger Marshall). Try to ignore the casually racist remark of one character ('lead balloon' doesn't begin to cover it), and an overly eccentric vicar, and just enjoy the polish of one of the best and most important television programmes ever made at its height.

Great episode.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 9/10 · 29 August 2022]

£50,000 worth of diamonds are found in the stomach of ventriloquist Dusty Rhodes.

Miss Pegrum and Glover are two genuinely wonderful villains, when you compare them to the elaborate, wilder bad guys from earlier years, these are probably a lot more interesting, not put to rule the world, just after one thing.

I loved the tone of this episode, it's definitely one of the darker episodes, one with more horror tones than is usual for the show. Personally I've always found ventriloquist's dummies quite creepy.

From my point of view this is yet another successful remake.

It's another immaculate production, it genuinely looks fabulous, Emma Peel's fight scenes got better and better, this features one of the most natural looking.

Definitely a couple of double entendres to make you chuckle throughout, all delivered wonderfully dryly.

The acting is fantastic as you'd expect it to be, Yolande Turner and Cecil Parker are both excellent, I absolutely loved the performance of Anneke Wills as Judy from the tie shop, how beautiful she looks here, great actress.

It's coming to the end of Mrs Peel's time, but they are certainly giving her one hell of a send off, the standard at the end of this series is so high.

9/10.

So great villains here !

[searchanddestroy-1 · 9/10 · 19 March 2019]

Yes, I appreciate very much this episode, though the topic is far from being the most interesting of the whole show. But the villains... Of course the old butler is so exquisite, and the lead villainess...So sexy, ambitious, smart and athletic too. Look out her fight against Mrs Peel at the end. I guess she was better than her, even if she lost

THE WEAKEST EPISODE OF THE EMMA PEEL COLOR ERA

[asalerno10 · 5/10 · 25 May 2022]

Unlike the previous two Cathy Gale era remakes (The Joker and The Chambers) which were superior to their originals, this one is boring and tedious. Here there is no surreal or fantastic element as in the rest of the chapters. All the scenes in the Litof company are monotonous and uninteresting. The worst episode of this stage of the series.