The Protectors (TV Series) Ceremony for the Dead (1972) User Reviews

Ceremony for the Dead

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 23 December 2022]

The Protectors are hired to protect President Medina and his wife Madame Rue has he plans to come to Europe for urgent medical treatment.

Harry Rule has a plan to get decoys who get abducted. Contessa Caroline di Contini will play Madame Rue.

It seems to work as Paul Buchet is one of the fake abductors.

However the real abduction takes place, almost to Harry's own plans.

Maybe Madame Rue is behind it all, hoping to follow her husband and become the leader of the country.

No one in this story looks convincingly middles eastern. Nice location of a port town, I guess it is somewhere in Italy.

Ignoring the flaws in the story, it is a nice bit of action all filled in 30 minutes.

Maltese Shenanigans.

[rewgreen · 4/10 · 26 January 2023]

Considering its limited running time of 25 minutes the pacing for this episode is a little pedestrian at times.

Initially we are treated to a pageant of unimpressed Maltese women, and then this is followed by an unnecessary parachute scene and a convoluted explanation of the Contessa's role in Harry's newly formulated plans.

Don't worry if you don't exactly follow the gist of these plans because as the program draws to a close the criminal mastermind is unmasked and all the characters quickly explain the plot that you've just sat through, (just in case you are as confused as I was).

There's even time left at the end of the program for Harry to do a little flirting at the airport.

Somewhere amongst all of this nonsense they successfully managed to wedge in quite a few more action scenes than the previous episodes. It is quite a well balanced episode on the whole and although extremely silly, it is impressive how they fit so much into 25 minutes without the program feeling overly rushed.

The tourist hotspot of Malta is the real star of this episode though. I'm sure that many a 70's holiday maker booked a trip to Malta on the strength of this episode.