The Avengers Dossier, Page Twenty-five

The end of 2021 is less than two weeks away, and with it comes the end of The Year of the Avengers here at Shades of Gray. We have one final profile to share with you, however...

RON MOODY

In "Honey for the Prince", Ron Moody played Hopkirk, the eccentric operator of an unusual business that becomes drawn into an assassination plot.

Born in 1924, Ron Moody drifted into the acting profession while studying economics after returning from military service in WW2. He had begun performing with an amateur theatre group that suddenly found itself with a hit play on their hands, and Moody found himself rising to be one of Britain's most popular comedians.

By 1953, he had made acting and stand-up comedy his chosen profession, and as the 1950s came to a close, he was a star of stage and television, and well on his way to conquering the big screen as well.

In 1960, Moody appeared on stage as Fagin in the hit musical adaptation of "Oliver Twist", simply titled "Oliver!". He later reprised the role in the 1968 film version, in the 1985 revival of the musical on Broadway, and in the made-for-television sequel "Oliver 2: Let's Twist Again" in 1995. Fagin is the character with whom most associate Moody, although he played many other characters and was, reportedly, a bit annoyed that he had been so closely affiliated with a single role.

Over his career, Moody appeared in 95 different films and television series. Some of these were animated or puppet shows where he voiced numerous characters. He generally played many quirky and roguish characters, with his guest-starring turn on two different characters on episodes of "The Avengers" (in 1966 and 1967); memorable supporting roles in great films such as "Murder Most Foul" (1964), "The Twelve Chairs" (1970), "Legends of the Werewolf" (1975), "Unidentified Flying Oddball" (1979); and starring turns on television series both in England and the United States, such as "Nobody's Perfect" (1980), "Into the Labyrinth" (1981), and "Hideway" (1986).

Ron Moody passed away in June of 2015.

The Avengers: Honey for the Prince

Honey for the Prince (1966)
Starring: Diana Rigg, Patrick Macnee, Ron Moody, Zia Mohyeddin, George Pastall, Bruno Barnabe, Roland Curry, and Peter Diamond

Director: James Hill

Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

The Avengers (Macnee and Rigg) are called into action to find out who murdered two British and agents and to stop the assassination of the crown prince of an oil rich nation who is visiting England with his 320 wives.

This episode deals with the intersection of modernity, Western culture, and conservative Middle Eastern culture, as well as class struggle and the right and wrong ways to work toward social change. These are all topics that I suspect would be near and dear to many potential viewers of this episode... if they could get past the obvious sexist bits, very-much-intentional racist bits ("intentional" because they are there to shed negative light on those holding the attitudes, despite the comedic presentation), and the cartoonish portrayal of the Saudi Arabian prince. And for those who don't care about social commentary, the episode has Emma Peel dancing around dressed as a harem girl, lots of funny lines, some of the best action/fight scenes of any episode so far in the series, and a great performance by Ron Moody. In fact, I think Ron Moody's presence and character puts this among the best episodes of "The Avengers", and the action scenes pushes it into Very Best territory.

The aspect of this episode I found the most enjoyable was the eccentric owner of a very strange business--and how the episode's villains made use of it. Ron Moody portrays Hopkirk, a writer and organizer of live-action roleplaying game scenarios that lets people live out action and adventure in the safety of his "danger rooms." Since roleplaying games and writing has been a vocation and avocation of mine for the majority of my life, I loved this angle to the show. Given how popular RPGs have become in recent years, I think it's an aspect that might appeal to a whole host of viewers.

"Honey for the Prince" was the final episode of "The Avengers" that was made in black-and-white, so this is where we part ways with the very entertaining team of Mr. John Steed and Mrs. Emma Peel. They remained partnered for one more patch of episodes... and maybe we'll have to revive the Watching the Detectives blog for a second Year of the Avengers in 2022. Time will tell. (Stick around here for the time being... there are a couple more posts to come for the 2021 Year of the Avengers here at Shades of Gray!)

Miss Marple takes to the stage in 'Murder Most Foul'

Murder Most Foul (1965)
Starring: Margaret Rutherford, Ron Moody, Charles Tingwell, and Stringer Davis
Director: George Pollock
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Miss Marple (Rutherford) goes undercover as an actress in a third-rate theatre company to prove a man innocent of murder while catching the real killer by solving a mystery with origins more than 15 years in the past.


"Murder Most Foul" is a fine little murder mystery/comedy that was loosely adapted from Agatha Christie's novel "Mrs. McGinty is Dead". Once again, Margaret Rutherford gives a fantastic performance as the feisty, never-takes-no-for-an-answer Miss Marple. The comedy of the film gets even more pointed when the hammy director of the theatre company (played with great flair by Ron Moody, who is the only actor in the film who manages to be as flamboyant and fun to watch as star Rutherford) casts her as a lady detective in a murder play, so Miss Marple, the amateur detective, is called upon to play an amateur detective while pretending to be an actress.

"Murder Most Foul" is a fun, lighthearted mystery movie featuring a cast with a level of talent that doesn't seem to exist anymore. (The way Ron Moody manages to mix diffused menace with a completely casual attitude, or the way he can deliver a line that shows how his character changes his mood in mid-sentence is a display of craft that we simply don't see in movies anymore.)