Perhaps the last hurrah for all those wonderful escapist programmes from the late 60's and early 70's, "The Persuaders" took the genre to the max with star power and location shooting the likes of "Department S", "Randall And Hopkirk Deceased" and "The Champions" could only dream of. I remember when the show came out in 1971 there was such a buzz about it, all to do of course with the curiosity of the dream pairing of Curtis and Moore as the mix and match lead characters and after catching a load of the cleverly assembled title sequence and John Barry's brilliant theme tune, it was easy to watch from there.
Sure the writing and direction were by ITC stalwarts Terry Nation, Basil Deardon, Ian Broadley and the like plus the plots always seem to manage to include a pretty girl for the terrific two to squabble over and an exotic location to punch out the baddies, but it's really all about the star quality of Moore and Curtis playing out their posh Englishman versus moxy Yankee routine with petty squabbling, grudging respect, many a disorganised word and even the odd fist fight.
Anyway I've just watched the first two episodes and thoroughly enjoyed them. Sure it's dated in many ways, with its dodgy fashion sense and especially its condescending outlook towards women, but I still find it as entertaining as I did all those years ago on Friday nights at 7.30 round our family's old black and white TV set.
Sure the writing and direction were by ITC stalwarts Terry Nation, Basil Deardon, Ian Broadley and the like plus the plots always seem to manage to include a pretty girl for the terrific two to squabble over and an exotic location to punch out the baddies, but it's really all about the star quality of Moore and Curtis playing out their posh Englishman versus moxy Yankee routine with petty squabbling, grudging respect, many a disorganised word and even the odd fist fight.
Anyway I've just watched the first two episodes and thoroughly enjoyed them. Sure it's dated in many ways, with its dodgy fashion sense and especially its condescending outlook towards women, but I still find it as entertaining as I did all those years ago on Friday nights at 7.30 round our family's old black and white TV set.