Made in 1966, Persona is among Ingmar Bergman's greatest, most vital movies, made during a difficult period in his life (Bergman's life is one short on easy times), having been hospitalised following a viral infection. It was while laid up that he conceived the notion of Persona, in which a famous actress, Elisabet (Liv Ullmann) suddenly lapses into a muteness from which, though mentally and physically healthy, she refuses to emerge. She is attended to by a young, naive nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson) who develops an obsession, bordering on infatuation with her silent charge. She finds herself jabbering all of her innermost secrets to her and, little by little, through dream sequences, repeated dialogue and trick photography, it's as if the consciousnesses of the two women have actually merged.

With its opening sequence of cryptic projected reel images (allusions to Bergman's previous work), jarringly atonal soundtrack and devices such as the audible chatter of camera crew, Persona contains an unusual share of avant-garde trimmings, which haven't necessarily stood the test of time. However, the relationship between Alma and Elisabet dominates the movie. Some confounded critics wondered if theirs was a lesbian relationship.

Actually, Persona is an occasionally cryptic but overwhelmingly powerful meditation on the parasitic interaction between Art and Life, the way the former feeds off the latter (Alma is distraught to discover a letter at one point which suggests Elisabet has been coolly observing her, as if for material). However, as an early scene featuring TV footage of a Vietnamese Buddhist monk torching himself as a protest against the war, it's also about the helpless incapacity of art to "say" anything in the face of grim reality. A small film budget-wise, but a colossal event in world cinema. --David Stubbs

Between heroic spells as the Saint and James Bond, Roger Moore was teamed with Tony Curtis in The Persuaders, a derivative but fun series about a couple of millionaire dilettante adventurers who swan around the world competing for the attention of beautiful women and getting involved in perplexing mysteries. Moore is Lord Brett Sinclair, an upper crust Brit of impeccable breeding, while Curtis is Danny Wilde, an up-from-the-streets self-made man whose trademark is a pair of brown gloves. The allegedly tasteful Brett and the crasser Danny both model a succession of garish early 70s fashions while their pursuits of duplicitous crumpet usually wind up with the women getting away and the heroes stuck with each other. Given all that, this may well be the most blatantly homoerotic of all the buddy television pairings (see the eponymous stars of Starsky and Hutch, Regan and Carter in The Sweeney, Bodie and Doyle of The Professionals) that ran ove! r the screen in the 70s, in which the male leads sublimated their feelings for each other by pulling out their guns and shooting at baddies. --Kim Newman