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[The Australian Panther]

This is in response to Prof's post over in the Agatha Christie Thread. That thread has already gone off on a few tangents!

I mean, from the first time I ever saw "THE SAINT IN NEW YORK", Louis Hayward instantly became my FAVORITE Simon Templar.  When I read the books, he was the ONLY actor I could picture in my head!  He's the only one (barring the odd early Moore episode) where anyone plays Templar as he was in the books... and Simon's CRAZY.  It's a good way.

Agree absolutely, the best film interpretation of the character I have ever seen. But it also has to be because of the script and the director. 

You know... when I look back on the 1997 movie with Val Kilmer, I still like it.

Not on your nelly! As it happens I like Val Kilmer, but never that movie.
If you look at his Doc Holiday in Tombstone, [Which is some kind of high-point]  you can see he has the chops to play the Saint right, but the movie was a Dog's Breakfast.   
As it happens the Saint literally changed my life. When I was in High School I had gotten to a very negative point in my life when by circumstance I laid hands on a copy of 'The Saint and Mr Teal'. at that point in my life I would never have had any reason to read that book, it just would never have happened. I laughed my head off, and the irreverence of the character towards authority - while being a very ethical and moral character - acted as a corrective to me in interpreting the world around me.
Roger Moore looked like the Saint and played the character well, but the scripts and the limitations of making a mass market TV show in the 60's meant that something was missing.
Mr Director, you want to make a Saint movie? Then you do it Period, late 30's, early 40's.
All comic versions of the Saint have been disappointing, because they lack the cheekiness, the irony of the Character. 
Prof, your comments on Mike Hammer make it clear that you read the books before you saw it on the screen. You were bound to be disappointed.
My first exposure to Mike Hammer was Darren McGavin's version. Since I had no prior knowledge of the character I found it quite memorable. Tame as it appears now, it was considered adults only and screened late at night.
To enjoy,
100+ Doc Holiday Lines From Tombstone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIWMDbNqtW0
and here is some Darren McGavin Mike Hammer
Mike Hammer The High Cost of Dying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfK93gNoCGY
The Narration works.
I've never watched any of the Stacy Keach Hammers, as an actor he's a good choice. But this was at a time when US TV dictated that everything had to have an upbeat ending, so I hope I'm not disappointed.       

[crashryan]

I first encountered The Saint when he started appearing on US television. I enjoyed Roger Moore (though his bouffant looked silly) and Edwin Astley's music. I went looking for more. It turned out that our local library had all the early Charteris novels and short-story collections. I ploughed through them and enjoyed them all. My brother and I conceived the idea of producing a Saint radio play on our brand new Roberts tape recorder. Even back then I was vaguely aware I should ask the author's permission to do such a thing. So I wrote Leslie Charteris in care of a publisher and--amazingly--he wrote back. It was a brief but genial letter typed on one of those flimsy blue fold-up air mail things that they used to use to save postage. I'd never seen one before. Charteris said the broadcast rights to the character were tied up in the TV package, but wished us well on a amateur project. Somewhere in the Garage of Doom I still have that letter. My brother and I had wild dreams of creating a real network radio show, so we dropped the Saint idea without producing anything.

I dropped out of Saintdom after the TV show ended. Other fandoms called. I did watch a lot of the RKO features on late-night TV. I mostly enjoyed them but they seemed a bit generic in comparison to the books. I thought The Saint in New York was above average, but I haven't seen it in forty years. I don't know what I'd think today.

Comic Book + blindsided me with "The Five Kings" in The Thriller #13. I'd had no idea Simon Templar had started life as a member of a "Six Just Men" secret society. The Saint rewrite of this story is ten times better than the original. All those kings running around, plus The Saint who was also referred to as The Joker...the concept was overly complicated. Making it entirely Simon's story was a brilliant move and opened the way for future adventures.

I had no interest in seeing the recent Saint movies. In the promos they looked like the same old modern-day action show. I always felt Simon should have been left in period. Though the Moore TV series was modern-day (for its time, of course) that modern day was still much like the 30s and 40s: no computers, cell phones, internet, global conglomerates, surveillance states, spacecraft, and all the other things that make the smaller stories from Simon's early days impossible. Consider for a moment how the entire face of entertainment was altered by the death of the pay phone and the land line!

[profh0011]

Mike Hammer & Simon Templar have been-- since the 1980s-- 2 of my favorite characters. And they're so different.  One of us needs to start a Hammer thread...


I remember seeing TV commercials for the Roger Moore series.  but somehow, never watched a single episode back when that I can remember.

I'm not entirely sure which version I saw first.  But I do recall my Mom once pointing out, shortly after I got my first VCR, that there was a double-feature on late-night, so I taped 2 movies and we watched both of them:

THE SAINT STRIKES BACK
THE FALCON STRIKES BACK

If that was where I really came in... man, what a freakin' weird place to come in.

In retrospect, George Sanders' 1st SAINT film (out of 5) is, in my opinion, the SINGLE WORST Saint film EVER MADE.  It's awful.  I had to see it 3 times before the plot made any sense at all.  The dialogue was horrible.  And... I CAN'T STAND Wendy Barrie.  (I don't know what Bugsy Siegel saw in her... heh.)

Meanwhile... while many dissed it, I loved THE NEW AVENGERS.  The following year, CBS ran RETURN OF THE SAINT.  I watched every episode of that.  By the time that one season was over... Ian Ogvily had become my FAVORITE ACTOR.  #1.  No kidding.  His version of "Simon Templar" was that chaacter on TV I MOST wished I could have been like.  No kidding.

I started catching some of the other SAINT movies on TV.  All of them were better than "... STRIKES BACK".  And then I saw "...IN NEW YORK".  Whoa.  Suddenly... suddenly... I felt like... this.  THIS.  This is why "THE SAINT" was memorable and became a success.

And then I started finding and buying the books.  I'm still missing half of them.  But of the ones I got, I started with what I believe is either the 3rd or 4th one (not sure)... "THE LAST HERO".  Oh man.  As Hayward was so different from what came later, this was even more different.

Templar is often described as "a modern Robin Hood".  That book gave me my FIRST real glimpse of why.  Though I've never read it described in detail, Templar was clearly born to a well-off family, went to the best schools, had a bright future before him... and instead, decided the world was full of WRONG that needed RIGHTING.  So he and several close, like-minded friends got together and conspired to right those wrongs.  Like Robin Hood and his merry men.  And that included --OH MY GOD!!!-- Patricia Holm-- who he was IN LOVE with.  How did they ever make all those later films and NEVER feature her, I wondered?

That first story involved a scientist who'd invented a "death ray", and intended to sell it to the highest bidder, brokered by a criminal who didn't care if they sold it to a country who'd use it to start a SECOND WORLD WAR.  It's been decades, but I recall Pat got kidnapped.  Simon would stop at nothing to get her back.  They kidnapped the scientist, hoping to "convince" him of the error of his ways.  HE REFUSED to see reason.  And so... one of Simon's friends took it upon him to EXECUTE the scientist, and wound up getting killed in the process.  The war broker-- "Dr. Rayt Marius"-- got away.  Simon swore there'd be a reckoning.

When I read that book, the only actor I could see or hear in my head was Louis Hayward.  Funny enough, whenever Rayt Marius was "onscreen", I kept picturing Lionel Atwill.  He would have been perfect in that role.  (Think "SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON".)

I read several other books... years later getting "THE AVENGING SAINT", which was the direct sequel.  Two scenes stick out in my head, decades later.  The first, Simon sneaks into Marius' hotel room, hiding in the bathroom while eavedropping on a secret conversation.  But while he's doing this, he takes a can of shaving cream, and writes a sarcastic message to Marius with it on the bathroom mirror.  Hilarious!  The other scene involved a chase between a 2-seater airplane and a speeding train.  Simon JUMPED from the plane onto the roof of the train, then settled up wioth Marius.  That scene was embedded in my head when I saw the 1989 movie "LICENSE TO KILL", where Timothy Dalton did the SAME thing.  It's notable in that movie that James Bond was not on a mission for MI 6, but on a personal revenge mission.  Was that scene inspired by the one in Charteris' book?  MAYBE!



When CBS started running the Roger Moore episodes, I was going full-blast videotaping stuff off of TV.  This may sound incredible-- but Roger Moore in those COLOR episodes did not seem as good of an actor to me as Ian Ogilvy was.  He seemed "stiff".  But I watched anyway. 

CBS never even ran all the color episodes.  Years later, I got the rest off of Channel 9 in NYC (thank God for cable).  I also taped RETURN OF THE SAINT off the same channel.  Stupid bastards were running it at 2:30 in the mornings.  They repeatedly SKIPPED one out of the 24 episodes.  So I'm missing it to this day.  They also ran the 2-part Roger Moores as "movies", separately.  And, eventually, they ran the B&W episodes.  Now THOSE blew my mind.

Most of the B&W episodes were adaptations of Leslie Charteris' short stories, many of which I'd read by then.  I could see, they took what could have been 30-minute stories and padded them out to 50.  2 things really struck me about those earlier episodes.  The WRITING was WAY better, on average, than when the show first switched to color.  Also-- Roger Moore's ACTING was THE BEST I'd ever, ever seen from him.  Purely on the B&W episodes alone, I'd rate him as one of the best Templar's ever.  2nd or 3rd, hard to say.



George Sanders grew on me.  He did 5 films of variable quality.  1 AWFUL... 2 AVERAGE... and 2, GREAT.

I think what happened was... "STRIKES BACK" was written with Hayward in mind.  But he quickly moved on to better and better-paying roles.  Sanders was COMPLETELY wrong for the part.  And it showed in that first film. (Of course, the whole script was a confused jumble, and nearly impossible to follow or make sense of.)

I'm convinced somebody realized this... and realized the folly of trying to adapt a novel in 60 minutes.  So the 3rd film (his 2nd), they took a short story... and CUSTOMIZED the dialogue to better match Sander's personality.  Sanders, to me, was all wrong for "Simon Templar".  Despite this, I now rank "THE SAINT IN LONDON" as the single BEST Saint film EVER MADE.  It's the only one from back then that totally encapsulates Templar's "world".  London.  His flat with the secret entrance to the car garage.  His habit of employing ex-convicts.  Chief Inspector Claude Eustace Teal, so perfectly cast an captured in the form of Gordon MacLeod, my choice the for BEST Teal ever.  I love the scene where it looks like Simon's about to be arrested for murder, and Teal tells Templar he's KNOWS it's a frame-up.  So they conspire together to have Simon "escape" and bring the culprits to justice.

Oh yeah, and then there's SALLY GRAY.  Until her, Annette Andre was my favorite "Saint girl".  Gray REALLY should have played Patrick Holm.  She was in the story "LONDON" was adapted from.  Somebody at RKO must have had a thing for Wendy Barrie.  She appeared in 3 SAINT films (playing a different character each time) and 2 FALCONs.

"THE SAINT TAKES OVER" is my 2nd-favorite Sanders film.  I strongly suepct it was loosely adapted from "ANGELS OF DOOM".  The 2nd time, they got it more right.  A woman seeking revenge for the death of her cop father, and gangers being bumped off, with Templar concerned they need ONE of them alive to clear someone's name.  The added hilarity was having Henry Fernack framed of a crime, and repeatedly turn up after someone's been killed.  HE's accusing Simon, and Simon is having too much fun allowing his sidekick to accuse Fernack.  I believe this was the only one of those 9 films Charteris wrote the screenplay for.  No wonder it was good.

Another fave of mine is "THE SAINT'S VACATION".  Hugh Sinclair is TOO skinny... and had NO business wearing a moustache.  But other than that, he's PERFECT in this film, a jaunt thru several countries, with Sally Gray as a newspaper reporter, and Cecil Parker as Rudolph, MY vote for the BEST Saint villain EVER.  Man, he was so smooth, he could have been a BOND villain.

It's sad that "THE SAINT MEETS THE TIGER" was such a disappointment... among many other things, who the hell gave Sinclair such a LOUSY wardrobe in that film?  I've seen photos of him clean-shaven-- he would have looked WAY better as Templar that way.


I recently read that Sally Gray dropped out of the biz for a bit due to a nervous breakdown because of the war. She got back in for a few years... but then, she met, fell in love and married some titled guy in Europe.  They were happily married for OVER 50 YEARS!!!!  Wow. that's the kind of story you don't mind reading about.

[crashryan]

About facial hair...the newspaper strip Saint was clean-shaven until the late 50s. For some reason, he suddenly sprouted a black Van Dyke which he wore for the duration of the strip. It looked all wrong, especially for 1959, when beards were out of fashion for everyone except codgers and beatniks.

[Andrew999]

Roger Moore is the Saint for me - the early monochrome shows - by the time he got to the colour episodes, he started to look a little bored with the role.

For my wife, who's younger than me, it was always Ian Ogilvy.

You've motivated me to go back and watch the early Saint movies - it's been years (decades) since I saw them.

I absolutely agree it's a mystery that Patricia Holm is barely featured in the movies/TV adaptations when she is so essential to the books.

Also, I must confess that whilst Moore is fun as the Saint, he fails to capture the hard edge, bordering on psycho, that drives the Saint in the book to seek his own form of justice - and the arrogance that places him above the law. What was it that tipped his mind in that direction? A rich, privileged young man with a perfect life before him ditches it all to fight injustice, whilst seemingly content to portray himself to the world as an effete wastrel.

It's the complexity of the character that keeps pulling you back.

[Andrew999]

The world is a lesser place for having missed out on the Garage of Doom production of a Saint radio series - it's still not too late!

[Andrew999]

I agree - Val Kilmer's Saint was deeply disappointing. I paid good money to see it in the cinema.

Like Panther, I don't dislike Val as an actor - Tombstone was great, as was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and I thought he was decent enough as Batman Forever.

There were two French movies with Felix Martin and Jean Marais as the Saint

Le Saint mene la danse (1960) (Saint leads the dance)
Le Saint prend l'affut (1966) (Saint on a stake-out)

I can't find the first one but the second one is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arOxmXr56N4

And of course there are the radio shows with Edgar Barrier. Here's a starter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL6TNXlrZ_o&list=PLJm2etPj4-MaekWJhzclhs8NlsLvFJPfH

[paw broon]

While I loved the b&w Moore shows at the time, I don't think they have stood the test of time.  I watched a few a couple of years ago and they were ok, but not more than ok. 
As for blokes deciding to go out and right wrongs, albeit not from what we imagine The Saint's background to be, Bulldog Drummond did it better imo. Those original 4 books are fast and exciting.  The movie adaptations of Drummond, not so much, in fact the later films are quite poor, again imo.
Nowadays, I'd rather watch the Paul Temple and The Toff  films.  2 characters from well off backgrounds going out to right wrongs. The early John Creasey books of The Toff are still a good read.

[paw broon]

Going back to John Creasey, the first few Patrick Dawlish books are a fast read - he wrote them as Gordon Ashe.  They're a bit of a Bulldog Drummond rip off.
Another hero who started out in The Thriller was Norman Conquest - 1066 by Edwy Searles Brookes who wrote later 1066 stories as Berkley Grey.  Brookes used a toned down version of Waldo The Wonder Man (from Sexton Blake) as a template for Norman conquest.  I learnt a lot of this from my friend, the late Russel Aitken, who was an expert on pulps and British detective fiction.  It's sad to think he's gone.
Sorry, gone a bit off topic

[Andrew999]

What a phenomenon John Creasey was - able to churn out 5000 words a day every day - one novel every three weeks - using nearly thirty pseudonyms.

I think it's time I revisited some of Creasey's work - and Bulldog Drummond too (I've only ever seen the movies)

Sapper's books (including Bulldog Drummond), long in the public domain, are readily available in a number of places for free - such as:

https://www.fadedpage.com/sc/sapper.php

[profh0011]

I remember my best friend in the 80s saying he had trouble getting a "handle" on The Saint.  He asked me, "What's his M.O.?  Who does he WORK for?"  I had trouble trying to explain... He DOESN'T work for anybody.  He works for HIMSELF.  Except, of course, when he's doing favors for British Intelligence.  He does that in both 'THE SAINT IN LONDON" and "THE SAINT'S VACATION".  This naturally annoys Teal, since he has NO idea what Templar's up to... only that he is up to something.

In "ANGELS OF DOOM" (the novel), they mention how in a previous story (which I have still never read-- grr), Templar is given a full pardon for past crimes, and his identity is now out in the open, and Teal is somewhat relieved by the turn of events.  But then he gets involved with a woman running a criminal gang, and after one of the gang is KILLED, is on the run from the law with her.  The most hilarious part of the story, was when Templar-- running from the cops-- driving around it a WHITE and CHERRY RED car-- the most conspicious vehicle imaginable-- checks into the MOST EXPENSIVE hotel in London, and signs in under the name "Claude Eustace Teal".  (The nerve of the guy... heeheehee.)

At the end of the story, Teal is at once both relived and annoyed, when he finds out that the whole damn time, Templar was working-- IN SECRET-- for the Police Commissioner.  Who Teal wishes had confided in him.

I think this element somehow found its way into the movie "THE SAINT IN NEW YORK", but it certainly WASN'T in the book.  In that novel, Templar actually accepts a paid bounty to KILL a whole gang of NYC gangsters, one by one.  It's only at the end that he finds out, the "concerned citizen" who hired him... is the LEADER of the gang.  It's crazy that RKO decided to pick the MOST violent Saint story to adapt for their 1st movie, the one story that would wind up the victim of the most CENSORSHIP.

[The Australian Panther]

Templar-- running from the cops-- driving around it a WHITE and CHERRY RED car-- the most conspicious vehicle imaginable-- checks into the MOST EXPENSIVE hotel in London, and signs in under the name "Claude Eustace Teal".

Roger Moore drove a 1962 P1800 Volvo. 

Author Leslie Charteris describes Templar as ?a buccaneer in the suits of Saville Row, amused, cool, debonair, with hell-for-leather blue eyes and a saintly smile?.? Just the sort of Englishman who would have exquisite taste in a motor car.

In the books Charteris made Simon always drive conspicuous cars. For the Saint's own car he made up a totally fictional car, the HIRONDEL.
Many fans have tried to imagine that car.
Here are a few examples.
TEMPLAR AND HIS HIRONDEL
https://simanaitissays.com/2014/10/31/templar-and-his-hirondel/

?And again and again, in the dark, the Hirondel swooped up behind ridiculous, creeping glowworms, sniffed at their red tails, snorted derisively, swept past with a deep-throated blare. No car in England could have held the lead of the Hirondel that night.?

a snarling silver fiend that roared through London on the wings of an unearthly wind.?

Man, in his early days, that guy could write. Reading those descriptions, the comic books were so disappointing. Just didn't get it at all.

The Hirondel was one of a few fictional automobiles that Charteris placed the Saint in over the years, with others being the Furillac and Desurio.

And some of you undoubtedly know, for the third version of the US Radio Saint,Vincent Price played the role.
50 episodes here.
https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=2827

Cheers! 

   

[profh0011]

I just found out "THE SAINT'S GIRL FRIDAY" was a product of Hammer Films.  Geez.  No wonder it was so dark and dreary and sombre and serious and depressing.  That's just "Hammer Films" all over.  Must have been the most inapproipriate studio possible to make a "Saint" film!

Even RKO, for all their faults, got some things right.

 

[Andrew999]

Until the mid-fifties, Hammer imported American stars to headline domestic productions in an effort to break into the American market - so I guess you could say Louis Hayward was dragged out of 'retirement' in a cynical ploy.

[profh0011]

Great link about the car. Some of those artistic interpretations are pretty cool (though at least one just looks ridiculous-- why does Joel Schumacher come to mind? heh).

One reader commented:
"I read somewhere that the TV producers wanted an E-Type but Jaguar refused and Volvo pounced."

Ian Ogilvy, of course, drove a white JAGUAR.  The funny thing is... 2 years earlier, Gareth Hunt as "Mike Gambit" drove the IDENTICAL car, only in red, on "THE NEW AVENGERS".  I love both shows, though I confess, I've watched "NEW" way more over the years than "RETURN" (heh).



I also read that Ian Ogilvy wanted the job so much he asked for less than he should have (gee-- JUST like Bela Lugosi did back in 1931).  He hoped if the show was a hit he could get a raise on subsequent seasons.  Whatta ya know-- it WAS a hit!! But despite this... executive Lew Grade, in YET ANOTHER of his seemingly-ENDLESS B***S*** snap decisions, decided he wanted to get into producing feature films, and CANCELLED the show to redirect his funds.  STUPID BASTARD!  Ogilvy said he never even got rerun residuals.



I recently hit on the idea that the General Henderson - Ed Straker conflict in "UFO" may well have been a fictional allegorical representation for what was going on between Lew Grade and Gerry Anderson.