User Reviews

After Snowy, an albino elephant, disappears from a small private zoo Steed suggests that Cathy gets a job there. It turns out that the zoo mainly works capturing wild animals that are then sold on to other zoos in both Britain and Europe. A couple of leads soon emerge; the zoo has recently acquired some rifles and some custom made animal cages. Steed visits both manufacturers; first posing as a hunter then claiming to be interested in restraints… both times he mentions that they are needed for a white elephant; inevitably this ruffles a few feathers. There is still the question of why the elephant was stolen; it didn't actually belong to the zoo; it had been found by a man in Burma but he hadn't been seen in five years. As the investigation continues a zoo keeper is murdered and an Ivory smuggling operation is uncovered.

This was a pretty solid episode; the ivory smuggling plot still seems fresh even if talk of big game hunting is clearly from another era. Not surprisingly we never actually see the elephant but the 'zoo' does feature several real animals and some viewers may be concerned as some of the animals look rather distressed during a shoot-out at the zoo. The plot isn't excessively convoluted but is, for the most part, fairly believable. There are a good variety of villains; some more villainous than others. The cast do an impressive job making the characters plausible. There is the expected level of humour; Steed asking for various restraints was particularly funny. Overall this was a good episode.

"The White Elephant" takes place at a private zoo where an albino elephant named 'Snowy' has been missing for a week before Cathy Gale uses her expertise on the African range to help Steed track her down. How anyone could misplace an elephant is a question that never comes up, and at least one murder takes place, but it never adds up to much. A cast of familiar faces is led by Edwin Richfield, here seen in his third of six episodes, as the ivory smuggler whose disappearance five years before makes it relatively easy for him to engage in his current activities behind the scenes. The unusual setting does make for an odd climax, with the actors shooting off their guns, clearly agitating the poor caged animals (not only are the birds squawking throughout the entire show, but an annoying fly crawls across the lens for about two excruciating minutes). Godfrey Quigley plays a nicer character than he did in the first two episodes, "Hot Snow" and "Brought to Book," but Judy Parfitt, previously seen in the excellent "Bullseye," just can't seem to avoid being one of the villains (she next turns up in "Escape in Time"). Bruno Barnabe later did "Honey for the Prince" and "You'll Catch Your Death," Rowena Gregory had a more substantial role in "Immortal Clay," Martin Friend had just done "The Gilded Cage," and Toke Townley's only previous entry was in the lost "One for the Mortuary."