Do you like films about gladiators...?

Sad to note the death at a ripe old age of actor Peter Graves, perhaps now best known as Captain Oveur from Airplane!


He exuded professional gravitas, helped by a magnificent mane of silver hair. But he'd also burnished that gravitas by his role as the leader of the crew in Mission Impossible, the deadly serious tv series that was, frankly, ludicrous in its 24-style pomposity and self-importance:


But we should be grateful to it for enabling us to laugh in horrified amazement when it turns out that Captain Oveur of Airplane! is, er, a bit of a pervert. Here he's seen welcoming young Joey into his, er, cockpit.


Left alone with Joey, he asks in a superbly friendly and deadpan manner: "Do you like films about gladiators, Joey? ... Have you ever been to a Turkish prison? ... Have you ever seen a grown man naked, Joey...?"