Sunday 8 January 2012

The Persuaders - Episode Two - To The Death, Baby (1971)


To The Death, Baby was the second episode of the cult classic, The Persuaders. A beautiful girl is a crock of Gold to men in search of Millions - but there are surprises at the end of the rainbow. A rich girl is inevitably the subject of envy & attention, and Shelley Masterson is a very rich girl indeed. She has inherited a soap empire and a fortune.
Lord Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore) & Danny Wilde ( Tony Curtis) slither along the softy soaped trail to intrigue when in Spain and witness a row between two men named Hatton (Thorley Walters & Foster (Terence Morgan) Hatton tells them that he is Shelley Masterson's financial adviser and hike is worried because Shelley has fallen for the wiles of the slithery Foster, an undoubted con man with all the charm of his profession.
Thirty million dollars are at stake - the size of Shelley's fortune. Foster has, in fact, been backed by a notorious gangster, Coady (Harold Innocent) to finance the seduction. Coady's cut will be half of Shelley's fortune when it falls into Foster's hands.
Brett & Danny can see one possible way out of the difficulties. They must both vie for Shelley's attentions in the hope that one of them will lure her away from Foster. Meeting Shelley Masterson (Jennie Linden) is a pleasure. She is not only wealthy, she is very, very beautiful and worth fighting for on her looks alone.
Brett & Danny soon discover though, that trying to win Shelley's affections is just the start of the explosively dangerous project, the first intimation of which is finding a document signed by Shelley, giving Foster control of her money should anything happen to Hatton. And it looks as though something is going to happen when he disappears.
Brett tails Foster to a village, where he finds the abducted Hatton who, after being rescued, says he has been forced to sign a document for 100,000 Dollars in Foster's favour, but it needs Shelley's counter signature. The solution would be a court case, but Shelley says she can not face being a public figure of fun.
Brett & Danny decide on another way to help. Unknown to each other, they stake Shelley to 100,000 Dollars to pay Foster off - and then find that Shelley and Hatton have disappeared and, with Foster's help, have taken Brett & Danny for 200,000 Dollars - or so they think. Shelley Masterson is a phoney, in league with the others, but they still have gangster Coady to reckon with and he wants his promised cut of the money.
Shelley is now in such deadly danger that Hatton has to go to Brett & Danny for help.