The Persuaders!

The Persuaders! titles and synthesiser theme, by John Barry,[5] establish the background and current identities of the protagonists via split-screen narrative technique:[6] two dossiers, one red, one blue, labelled Danny Wilde and Brett Sinclair simultaneously depict their lives. The younger images of Tony Curtis are genuine, whereas the images of Roger Moore (with one exception) were mock-ups created for the credits. As the biographies approach their current ages, a series of four short sequences combine live footage with torn newspaper clippings, connoting their excitingly peripatetic lifestyles. The conclusion shows them together enjoying a life of sport, drink, women and gambling. The titles were specifically designed so that neither actor would appear to have top billing, something both Moore and Curtis stipulated when they agreed to co-star.

The title sequence retains a certain cachet among professional film editors. In 1995, Peugeot released an advertisement for the 306 car, with the theme of the opening title sequence, the split-screen process and even the voice of Michel Roux, who dubbed Tony Curtis in the French broadcast of the original series. In 2007, France 2 satirically used it to introduce a report about relations between the newly elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his first Prime Minister François Fillon.[7]

The protagonists drive signature cars. Danny Wilde drives a red left-hand-drive Ferrari Dino 246 GT (chassis number 00810). Brett Sinclair drives a UK-registered Bahama Yellow right-hand-drive 6-cylinder Aston Martin DBS (chassis number DBS/5636/R) with V8 wheels and markings. Both cars were provided to the show's producers courtesy of the respective vehicle manufacturers. The grey Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow chassis no. SRH2971 seen in the episode That's me over there is known as the most filmed individual Rolls-Royce motor car ever.

As with Simon Templar – Roger Moore's character in the television series The Saint – Sinclair's car has personalised number plates of his initials: Simon Templar's were "ST 1", Brett Sinclair's are "BS 1" (except for one scene in the episode "The Gold Napoleon", where the car is seen with its real UK registration number PPP 6H). The true owner of the index number of Sinclair's car, Billy Smart, Jr., permitted its use in the series.

The Aston Martin from the show was sold by the factory after filming ended, via HR Owen in London, to its first private owner. It was restored in recent years by the Aston Martin factory, and is presently owned by divorce lawyer and art collector Jeremy Levison.[8] Both Moore and Curtis had signed the underside of the car's boot (rear luggage compartment): Moore at Pinewood Studios in May 2003; Curtis at Cheltenham Racecourse in October 2008. In 2013, the Aston Martin DBS was an invited participant at two of Europe's most exclusive motoring concours, the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este at Lake Como, and the Salon Privé Concours in London.

Danny Wilde's Dino bears Italian registration plate MO 221400 (the 'MO' component represents the province of Modena, which happens to be the headquarters and manufacturing base of Ferrari). The exact whereabouts of the Dino today is unknown, but it is believed to be in private ownership in Italy.[9]

There is much speculation about the professional relationship between Moore and Curtis, on- and off-set. In her autobiography Second Act, Joan Collins detailed how they did not get along when she was a guest star. She cited Curtis's foul temper as the reason why the set of the episode "Five Miles to Midnight" was tense. In a 2005 interview given to the British Film Institute, director Val Guest confirmed Collins's assessment of Curtis:[11]

'Yes, it was great fun doing The Persuaders!, despite Tony Curtis.' [laughter] 'I'll tell you a funny story about that':

"Tony was on pot at the time, and I used to have to say 'Oh, go and have a smoke'm', because he always had some gripe of some kind, and, one day, we were shooting on the Croisette, in Cannes, and we'd been roped off our little thing, and there were crowds all around watching us film and everything, and Tony Curtis came down to do his scene and he was just carrying on at the wardrobe saying, 'You didn't do this, and you should have done that... and in Hollywood you would have been fired....' And dear Roger Moore walked over, took him by the lapels, looked him straight in the eyes and said, 'And to think those lips once kissed Piper Laurie'. [laughter] Well, the whole of the Croisette collapsed, the unit collapsed, and, I must say, even Tony had to laugh, but we were asked to do another... we got the award that year for the best TV series, I think it was, and they wanted to do a repeat, and I remember Roger saying, 'With Tony Curtis, not on your life', and he went on to become James Bond, so he did all right."

— Val Guest, director

In his autobiography, Still Dancing, Lew Grade noted that the actors 'didn't hit it off all that well",' because of different work ethics. According to Moore's autobiography, Curtis's use of cannabis was so extensive that he even smoked it in front of a police officer while filming at 10 Downing Street.[12] Despite third-party claims, Curtis and Moore consistently maintained they had an amicable working relationship. Moore said: 'Tony and I had a good on- and off-screen relationship; we are two very different people, but we did share a sense of humour.'[2]

In a 2005 interview, Curtis referred to Moore with affection and stated that he would not participate in a remake of The Persuaders! without Moore.[13]

Although the series was placed in the Top 20 of most-viewed television series in Britain throughout 1971,[14] Lew Grade wanted it to do well in the profitable American television market. It followed his earlier series such as Man in a Suitcase, The Champions and The Baron.[1] But The Persuaders! made little impact in America, airing on ABC on Saturday nights opposite Mission: Impossible.[1] In an interview given in 2007, Curtis attributed the lack of success in the US to the ABC network failing to screen it at prime time.[15]

ITC subsequently sought to repackage and re-release The Persuaders! in the American market, by editing eight of the episodes together and releasing them as four 90-minute TV movies (each comprising two episodes from the series, typically missing only their original opening and closing title sequences). These were:

• London Conspiracy (from "Greensleeves" and "A Home of One's Own". There is a piece from "Angie, Angie...")
• Sporting Chance (from "Someone Waiting" and "Anyone Can Play")
• Mission: Monte Carlo (from "Powerswitch" and "The Gold Napoleon")
• The Switch (from "The Ozerov Inheritance" and "Angie, Angie...")

There was also a proposed fifth TV movie but was not completed this was

• The Persuaders (from "Overture" and "The Man In The Middle")

But the trailer and opening is included in the 2006 Region 2 DVD/2011 Region B Blu Ray Network Special Edition set along with the 4 completed films and their trailers

• Death Becomes Me (from "Someone Like Me" and "A Death in the Family")

Despite the overall disappointment in the UK and US, The Persuaders! sold well in other international markets, particularly Continental Europe. This success allowed ITC to recoup much of its production costs, soon after principal photography was completed. The series has remained popular in Germany, Denmark, France, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Hungary and Italy; episodes are still regularly repeated throughout Europe.[2] For instance, DR2 in Denmark rebroadcast the entire series on weekday early evenings during the spring of 2012.

In the UK, The Persuaders! had re-runs on Channel 4, Granada Plus, Bravo and ITV4 in the 1990s and 2000s. When the pilot episode, "Overture", was screened as part of Channel 4's nostalgia strand TV Heaven in 1992, that series' host (comedy writer Frank Muir) said in a Radio Times interview that The Persuaders! 'must have been the best bad series ever made... absolute hokum'. However, BBC Radio 5 presenter Dave Aldridge later asked: 'Was seventies TV really this good?'

Die Zwei, the German version of The Persuaders!, became a cult hit in Germany and Austria. This was largely because the dubbing was substantively altered, creating a completely different program. In France, Amicalement Vôtre ('Amicably Yours') was based on the re-dubbed German version instead of the English original .

The German dubbing was described as 'a unique mixture of street slang and ironic tongue-in-cheek remarks' and it 'even mentioned Lord Sinclair becoming 007 on one or two occasions'.[16] Dialogue frequently broke the fourth wall with lines like 'Junge, lass doch die Sprüche, die setzen ja die nächste Folge ab!' ('Lad, just quit the big talk, or they'll cancel the next episode!') in S01/E05 at 44:36 or 'Du musst jetzt etwas schneller werden, sonst bist Du nicht synchron' ('You have to speed up [talk faster] now, or else you won't be in sync').

Research from the University of Hamburg notes the only common elements between Die Zwei and The Persuaders! are the images. Other than 'the linguistic changes entailed by the process of translation, result in radically different characterizations of the protagonists of the series. The language use in the translations is characterized by a greater degree of sexual explicitness and verbal violence, as well as an unveiled pro-American attitude which is not found in the source texts.'[17]

In 2006, a news story by CBS News on the German dubbing industry mentioned The Persuaders! The report discovered that many German dubbing artists believed that 'staying exactly true to the original was not always the highest aim'. Rainer Brandt, co-ordinator of the German dubbing of The Persuaders! and Curtis' dubbing voice, said: 'This spirit was invoked by the person who oversaw the adaption and also performed [Tony] Curtis' role: when a company says they want something to be commercially successful, to make people laugh, I give it a woof. I make them laugh like they would in a Bavarian beer garden.'[18]

Other researchers suggest that international versions of The Persuaders! were given different translations, simply because the original English series would not have made sense to local audiences. For instance, the nuanced differences between the accents and manners of Curtis, the American self-made millionaire Danny Wilde from the Brooklyn slums, and Moore, the most polished British Lord Sinclair, would be hard to convey to foreign viewers. Argentinian academic Sergio Viaggio commented 'how could it have been preserved in Spanish? By turning Curtis into a low class Caracan and Moore into an aristocratic 'Madrileño'? Here, not even the approach that works with My Fair Lady would be of any avail; different sociolects of the same vernacular will not do — much less in subtitling, where all differences in accent are irreparably lost.'[19]

• Winner – Logie Award 1972 Best Overseas Drama (Australia)
• Winner – TP de Oro Award 1973 Best Foreign Series (Spain)
• Winner – Bambi 1973 for Curtis and Moore (Germany)