Review of Persuaders!, The: Volume 1

Introduction

The Persuaders. One- Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis), a street smart, self-made millionaire from the Bronx. The other Lord Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore), an English aristocrat who, is wealthy but bored and like Danny craves adventure and excitement. Opposites brought together by “the judge” they move throughout the capitals of Europe working together to seek justice in an unjust world.

Episode 1
Overture
Brett and Danny are both invited to a hotel where they meet for the first time, end up fighting each other, and are arrested. They are released with the condition they track down a crime boss who faked his own death.

Episode 2
Angie…Angie
Danny meets up with an old friend and learns, too late, that things have changed from the good old days and that a film festival is a perfect place for a murder.

Well what can I say? You’ve all probably seen these many times on TV and if you haven’t then you must have better things to do, so why are you reading read this review of a program that’s been aired more times than my favourite pair of lucky pants?
In case you haven’t I can sum all the episodes up in a sentence. The persuaders go around chatting up every woman that they see, drive flash cars, have at least one fistfight and usually have a shootout at the end. Oh and they occasionally solve a murder or two and generally smarm around a bit. Ok…that’s two sentences but I can put it into one if you want. I was just being lazy.

Roger Moore plays……..Well Moore as usual and Tony Curtis is… yep Tony Curtis. The funny thing is that they even admitted it

” Curtis felt that both of them came as close as they have ever done to showing their true characters with their acting in The Persuaders: `Do you want to know what Roger and I are? Look at The Persuaders, look at every one of those episodes and you will see what the relationship is and you will truly see what we are.”

Oh dear. Nevertheless, it’s all in good fun and quite entertaining. The two actors suit their parts perfectly, the stories although unbelievable are always watchable, and you’re guaranteed a few chuckles even if it is just at the expense of the seriously strained buttons on Tony’s shirts.

Just sit down, put your brain in neutral, and enjoy the quips and eyebrow action from Moore.

True: Tony Curtis was arrested and fined for possession of cannabis at London’s Heathrow airport while entering the country to film “The Persuaders”

False: Tony Curtis does not like snails but loves oysters. (or is it the other way around)

Video

Well unsurprisingly, it’s not exactly demo quality but then again not altogether disappointing. First off, the title sequence has probably seen better days as it’s very dirty and grainy with lots of scratches and such like. Thankfully this doesn’t continue throughout the rest of the program and seems to affect only the processed shots (fades etc). Most of the video is fairly good considering its source and age, there’s a little grain here and there and some dust but nothing unwatchable.
As with many programs of this time the colours look subdued and washed-out and never seem fully saturated. Also the picture is a little soft which is a shame as the detail level suffers. I didn’t notice any compression problems though which was good.

So its a bit of a mixed bag really but if you’re a fan there’s nothing here that should put you off from buying this disc, just shut your eyes through the title sequence and you should be alright.

Audio

Audio is presented in mono which you would expect and while not exactly the most exciting soundtrack you’ll ever hear it does its job well. Dialogue is clear with no distortion and although maybe sounding a little compressed its perfectly fitting for the program.

Features

Extras are a little sparse but considering the price of the disc you cant really complain. First of all you have animated menus with the theme tune looped in the background which is a nice touch from Carlton. You also get an ITC trailer, the original artwork (only one page), four pages of character biographies/facts and of course English subtitles. Scene access (animated) contains 8 chapters per episode which can be chosen from the menu.

Conclusion

Well apart from a few picture problems this disc is pretty good value. I’m sure fans of this series would overlook the occasional bit of grain or dust to be able to have The Persuaders in digital format. And now thanks to Carlton you can now chuck that mess of a VHS picture in the bid where it belongs and watch it continuously without any detrimental effect on the video/audio. It’s a shame there isn’t more background information and facts in the extras department and maybe an extra episode squeezed on would be nice. However, let’s face it at this price you can’t really complain.

So overall not a bad disc but one aimed primarily at the fan rather than the general viewer.



Note: This disc would not play on my creative dxr2 as it froze after the copyright screen. I could only get to play by using the chapters and skipping that bit of the disc. It does play fine after this though.