Often a movie is “trash talked” right out of the gate—not because the storyline is weak, or the actors miscast, but the “leads” (however fine their performances) have no chemistry: Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts in The Mexican (2001) comes immediately to mind; whereas the “Pretty Woman” and Hugh Grant have buckets of “It” in Notting Hill (1999). 

When pondering “spontaneous sparks” most of us think “A Man and A Woman”: William Powell and Myrna Loy in seven Thin Man films (1934–1947); Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in nine outings, from Woman of the Year to Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (1942–1967), with the legendary Tracy dying two weeks after shooting wrapped; and more recently, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail (1993–1998). 

Few can resist genuine on-screen chemistry. It’s rare; it’s addictive, even voyeuristic, like watching continuous foreplay—and that is why so many “rematches” crop up. Money, like water, seeks its own level. Show business translation: “Do whatever works—and keep on doing it until it doesn’t work any more. Or the actors are dead.”

But chemistry doesn’t have to involve sexual tension. A splendid illustration of this is the wise teaming of Roger Moore and Tony Curtis in a very stylish British TV series: The Persuaders. 

Twenty-four episodes—airing from September 17, 1971 until February 25, 1972—are now available on DVD. (These shows, running about 52 minutes each, also provide a fascinating documentation of fashions and upscale life in Britain and on the Continent in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Everything is as it really was. Trust me; I was living there when…! Throughout, it is obvious the two actors had a huge amount of fun, and their physical energy and verbal timing are faultless.)

Moore plays English aristocrat, Lord Brett Sinclair, and Curtis a tough Bronx-born self-made business mogul, Danny Wilde. Flush with dough, both have let ambition wither, becoming aimless, jet setting playboys. 

Meet Judge Fulton, played by marvelous old character actor Laurence Naismith (1908–1992)—captain of the Titanic in A Night To Remember (1958), First Sea Lord in Sink the Bismarck (1960), and the wily shipbuilder Argos who fashions the craft Jason and the Argonauts (1963) set sail on in search of the Golden Fleece. Embittered by all the injustices he saw while on the bench (guilty parties let off on a technicality; witnesses too fearful, or too dead, to show up), Fulton vows to use his remaining years settling the score. A terrific premise! 

In the pilot, Overture, he arranges for Sinclair and Wilde to meet, certain they will be wary of one another, but most likely hate each other on sight—precisely what he intends. As he tells an old friend, the two are like “nitro and glycerin,” harmless when separated, deadly when brought together. 

He sets them up so they must accept a dangerous assignment, or serve three months in a French jail for trashing a hotel bar during a testosterone-enraged fight—not over a woman, but the number of olives required in a particular cocktail. (This sets the tone for all the superb “silliness” that works so well throughout the series.) In future escapades, through one scrape after another, they become fast friends—saving each other’s life more than once. 
Roger Moore had recently completed eight seasons as The Saint, a worldwide TV mega-hit based on the adventures of the infamous Simon Templar, a “modern-day Robin Hood” Leslie Charteris introduced in 1928. (By the mid-’60s some fifty novels, and volumes of short stories, were best-sellers in fifteen languages.) Moore had done well in television before, but this show made him an international star. 

Tony Curtis had a flourishing career as a dramatic and comedic film actor during the ’50s and early ’60s—but age, and the changing tastes of moviegoers, saw it wane. Rock Hudson and Glenn Ford were first considered for this part, but as producer Robert S. Baker tells us (in a “DVD special feature” discussion with Roger Moore and production executive Johnny Goodman), Tony’s more rapid New York style of speech—plus his impish sense of humor and reputation for improvisation—quickened the show’s pace and added to the final polish. (In one episode Curtis answers a hotel telephone, “Bernard Schwartz? Never heard of him.” Bernard Schwartz is Tony’s real name. They kept it in: delightful kitsch.)

The opening credits were shrewdly designed to rapidly reveal their polar opposite backgrounds; and the evocative theme music was composed by John Barry, whose “bold, brassy style” in Dr. No (1962) made him the first choice of producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman’s to score the subsequent Bond films. There’s plenty of power boat and automobile racing, water-skiing on the Mediterranean, gallons of champagne being guzzled, some very, very bad guys, and some very, very beautiful, scantily clad women. (Simply wearing the fashions of the day made their dress Spartan!) 

The series features guest appearances by actors with long careers behind them, bringing a high degree of refinement to their roles. One example: Canadian Lois Maxwell—Miss Moneypenny from Dr. No in 1962, right through to A View to a Kill in 1985, which was also the last Bond film for then 57-year-old Roger Moore—appears in the final installment, Someone Waiting, originally broadcast on February 25, 1972.

The episodes are a little uneven in story quality, but when hasn’t that been true in a series? However, even the odd fragile one is still a lark. Unfortunately, there is an occasional technical problem with the sync sound; but this does not occur in every show, or last long enough to be truly annoying.

Throughout the series (I watched half of them before writing this review) you are transported back to a time well worth remembering—for those of us fortunate enough to have been there—and well worth visiting if you were too young to really be part of it all. 

Indeed, it is worth watching The Persuaders just for the clothes and the cars. Moore drives a 1969 Aston-Martin DBS (successor to 007’s famous “wheels” in Goldfinger—1964); and Curtis has a 1969 Ferrari 246 Dino. 

It is the early 1970s. The location shots—Monaco, the French and Italian Rivera, plus footage from many English locales, including swinging London—makes for sensational “time travel.” As far as I’m concerned the ladies never looked better than in the fashions of that day. And, oh my God, the colors: for both men and women! There are quite a few nightspot scenes, and the “I’ve got the goods, are you interested babe?” gyrations of the clubbers will have anyone past fifty wet-eyed with nostalgia. A couple of naughty hints at spanking, by saucy young women, are more humorous than soft-porn.

When you bring your DVD home, please remember what producer, Robert Baker says: “They’re not supposed to be two superheroes, they’re supposed to be two inept heroes.” Yet somehow they always end up on top, sort of a modern-day but far luckier version of Laurel and Hardy, I like to think. 

Whether you regard The Persuaders as a “cool” TV relic, or commendable broadcasting for its time, I can guarantee you’ll be saying: “That’s entertainment!” Buy it new or buy it used—“Oh, the fun you will have!”

Copyright © 2006 by Michael Orr