Most work that Patrick Macnee did in younger years was theatre and television. He was in a few films at the beginning of his career, but mainly had only minor roles. He is a member of the committee in The Small Back Room from 1948, but blink and you will miss him. His potential arises as Mr. Vince in All Over the Town from 1949, but he's not even in the credits. He's only in there a few minutes such as in Scrooge with Alistair Slim from 1951, where he played the young Marley. In Dick Barton at Bay (1950) he was Phillips, a young agent, and gets killed in a telephone cell after a few minutes at the beginning of the film.
Also he appeared in the Powell and Pressburger production The Elusive Pimpernel (1950) with David Niven, where he got the small part of Valiant John Bristow because he was an excellent rider.
He did Three Cases of Murder with Orson Welles and had a minor role again as an army officer. At the side of Antony Quayle he portrait the navy officer Ralph Medley in The Battle of the River Plate in 1956.
His performance as prosecutor Sir Percy in The Girls from 1957 is definitely worth mentioning.
In Mission of Danger (1959) he played the British Grenadier officer Harrison Trent. The Warner Brother film was made of three episodes of the TV Series Northwest Passage, the episode with Patrick Macnee was The Red Coat. He can also be seen as a British officer in the episode 6.05 of the TV Series The Swamp Fox and in a short scene of Three Cases of Murder with Orson Welles.
Mr Jericho from 1970, where he portrayed the jewels thief Dudley Jericho, is the first feature-length film with him in the main role.
There're only two blockbusters with him: As Major 'Yogi' Crossley in The Sea Wolves from 1980 with Roger Moore, Gregory Peck, David Niven and Trevor Howard and the James Bond film A View to a Kill from 1985, where he gave his performance at the site of Roger Moore as Sir Godfrey Tibbett.
A few films with him are famous, because they are classics - worse classics such as Incense for the Damned from 1971. It's a vampire horror film, so is No Such Thing as Vampire, one of the three stories from Dead of Night from 1977. I have to say that I like the one with him very much, it could almost be a Hammer production and Patrick Macnee as Dr Gheria is so wonderful evil here, playing a cuckold who takes revenge by accusing his rival to be a vampire. He's also in The Howling from 1980, one of the werewolves classics.
A classic too is the series Battlestar Galactica from 1978. Here Patrick Macnee portrayed Count Iblis, incarnation of the evil, the opponent of his old friend Lorne Greene as William Adama. The two episodes War of the Gods with Macnee are excellent. Famous is his narration(complete intro narration audio) from the intro of the series: "There were those who believe..." (blooper version)
Many films that followed were done for the "pay cheque" as Patrick Macnee often said.
One of them is The Creature Wasn't Nice from 1981, but once again Patrick Macnee who's portraying as a slightly crazy scientist is a highlight.
Remarkable are the Sherlock Holmes films with him.
He's the only actor who portrayed Holmes and Dr Watson. Patrick Macnee played Watson opposite Roger Moore in Sherlock Holmes in New York in 1976 and was again John Watson with Christopher Lee as Holmes in the TV Mini Series Sherlock Holmes and The Leading Lady (1991) and in The Incident at Victoria Falls (1992). He was Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of London in 1993. The Avengers series 6 episode The Curious Case of the Countless Clues is a funny Hommage to Sherlock Holmes and Sir Artur Conan Doyle, where Steed practiced Sherlockian deduction about Sir Arthur Doyle's new secretary and like Sherlock Holmes Steed played the violin twice in The Avengers, first in this episode and again in TNA Eagle's Nest. Patrick Macnee was although the host in a documentary about Sherlock Holmes, called In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes from 1996.
In 1998 he was "Invisible Jones" in The Avengers film.
He did everything from comedy to horror film, from spy film to science fiction - in many of these films is he the highlight.
