The Avengers: Mister Jerico
And in fact the film is so very much like The Avengers in some ways. The font used for the titles was also used for The Avengers titles. It has Patrick Macnee in it, playing the sort of ambivalent figure he played in the earlier series of The Avengers before he became the grand old man of series 6. The trouble is that he talks as if he is Steed. Macnee's character sounds so like Steed, that if you close your eyes you can see Steed in front of you. In fact the sound track uses so many of the sound effects used in The Avengers that this film is in audio terms an extension of series 6 of The Avengers.
I was going to write that I felt this film was partly influenced by the James Bond series of films, and in fact it may well have been. However I have recently been rewatching the series of Pink Panther films and feel that they may well have been more influential. Certainly the obsession with the diamond in this film is more in line with the original Pink Panther film of 1963 than the larger concerns of James Bond. The fact that this film co-stars Herbert Lom was what made me think of the connection, although of course the characters in this film are quite different. Nonetheless, to my mind there is something of the atmosphere of the Pink Panther films rather than that of the James Bond films.
This morning I watched Live and Let Die, and was disappointed that what I inaccurately remembered as a mysterious film about voodoo and tarot cards was actually a James Bond film! I bring this up merely to make another comparison with Mr Jerico. While the clothes in Live and Let Die are obviously of their period (flairs feature highly and the many black characters are played more as caricatures) Live and Let Die does not seem as dated as Mr Jerico. The clothes in Mr Jerico are so very much of their time that they really hit you in the face and cannot be ignored. This is one of the problems with this film for me, that Patrick Macnee doesn't act that much differently to John Steed, but is so obviously not John Steed that it just seems wrong. This is of course an entirely personal viewpoint of this. I have no doubt that some people would like to see the frilly shirts and synthetic fibres of the time on his character. In addition, while I commented above that Macnee plays an ambivalent figure similar to his early Steed, in fact I think the ambivalence is that he is likeable. In reality he is a rogue, pure and unalloyed.
Production values are also more like the Pink Panther films than the Bond films. Definitely a smaller budget, so no wholesale destruction of luxury cars and what have you. Pacing is series 6-era Avengers. This film would be incredibly likeable if it didn't have so many overtones for a dyed in the wool Avengers fan like me! Perhaps it is best seen as a supporting feature - I see that it was originally billed as the supporting feature to Carry on up the Jungle, which dates it to a T. I certainly wouldn't tell anyone not to watch this film, I would just advise you not to be surprised when the conflicting emotions well up.
The final question which this film raises for me personally is whether the Avengers formula would have have been better going in a Mister Jerico direction or a New Avengers direction. My preference would have to be for a New Avengers direction, having never had any of the dislike for that series that some Avengers fans have. That said, I like to approach the New Avengers as if I am watching any 1970s series (The Professionals, say), so perhaps I had better approach Mr Jerico as if it is a Pink Panther film!