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In that case I'm happy to stand corrected! :)
I lose track a bit of which stories I've read and what books I own, but I vividly remember the first one I encountered: The Saint and Mr Teal. Loved the character and the prose style straight away.
To my mind, he has a lot in common with Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey, whom I discovered around the same time: the hard-as-nails physique under the playful, witty exterior, the gentleman dabbling in crimefighting, and of course the hatred of injustice.
Simon Templar got a new past, something the writer Leslie Charteris steered clear from in order to keep some mystery alive, the movie shows him to be burglar/criminal which is was in the original books. He stole from the wicked and gave to the needy minus a percentage for himself of course.
I understood that this movie had some re shoots hence the Saint wearing a beard as this was during Rayners filming of Reigned. The movie in itself is a hoot and a half love the globetrotting, decent action-scenes, not a big fan of the origin story (I suppose the Templar heritage comes in handy these days, the other two Saints Ogilvy & Moore do their part even if Roger's too short in my humble experience, perhaps Dutton also would have pooped up along a possible series that will never happen). The Sainty Theme is too subtle and the Stickman in the titles is really missed.
A really nice but short lived return of Simon Templar. I do hope we get the next installment where he belongs in the thirties.
And no, I wasn't a big fan of the origin story either. Did my best to stop it but (obviously) failed. Glad you liked it though.
Is there a chance Rayner might come back?
Just curious!
Thought as much. A real pity, but they seems to be the way the wind blows with the Saint for many a year.
To be honest quite a few episodes from the Moore -Saint era & of course Return of the Saint era were newly written and quite entertaining so that observation is kinda moot. That said the Saints existence from is earlier in the 20th century so any update will likely be new. The tv movie is quite entertaining and does have some nice moments for fans. A a generic actioner it is quite good too.
I believe Charteris addressed that, claiming he was embarrassed by the first book.
I remember one about a new super weapon, in which The Saint was able to
destroy the plans, but the scientist had no quams in building another. So
one of the friends of the Saint who'd lost many friends in ww1, shot the scientist
then himself. As he didn't want to see again the slaughter of millions with a new
terrible weapon.
That was "the Last Hero" which was quite good novel and showed the Saint growing up as well.
The early Saint was a bit of a outrageous adventurer that took insane chances and beat the opposition because they were serious about their business and could not believe the Saint. I quite love the early Saint who was dark and silly alike and reading Charteris prose is still a hoot and a half.
I think I have a modern copy of that one. It said on the back that it was an early Weapon of Mass Destruction. I think that must be the one anyway. I have most of Charteris' Saint books. I found a whole cache (40) of older editions in brilliant condition at my local Tesco charity book stand last year and bought the lot for £40.
Now there is an excellent buy. I have got really early editions of "the Last Hero" as wel as "Meet the tiger" which is really the earliest Saint novel and has not been re-released for a long time as it is that book that Charteris considered a bit shameful. I have really enjoyed rereading that book.
Yes, I thought so too. I mean I had a few Saint novels/story collections before that (way back to 1996) but I simply couldn't pass it up when I saw them. They'd just been donated I guess. I think there are still a few I need, but I now have the majority of them.
I have Meet the Tiger too (from the Tesco 40) - albeit it a later US edition pb from I think 1980. Still, I was chuffed to get the first one! I understand he wrote four books at that time and picked The Saint as the best of the four characters he'd created and decided to run with him as a series character.
Really? Never knew that. What were the others like? I imagine they're quite rare now too.
They were a product of their times and a wee bit like the Edgar Wallace novels only the hero's were a bit more out there.
Aww, that's a real shame. Can't believe a burglar would know of such obscure titles, but there you are! I hope it brought them no luck anyway!
I need to get those other four books for my collection. Any copy would do, though they could be expensive!
That was an excellent Tesco find! I have a few old hardbacks which a charity shop sold me for 5p apiece. I love them but they're in tatters.
This was no accident I believe and neither did the police think so.
That makes me really sad, and angry, you know. He clearly knew his stuff, but not a very nice thing to happen to a Saint/general book collector I'm sure.
It's a 12-disc (and by the looks of it a Scandinavian) release, which is a bit cheaper than the Complete Colour Series you can get on Amazon UK. However, it says on the cover (and on the little information I can find online) that the set includes 43 episodes. But looking at the number of episodes made in colour, there were 47! Does anyone know why there might be episodes missing from this collection?
By 1966 Bond had overtaken the Saint in popularity--I'd be interested to know what Charteris's reaction was.
I have not! But Ian Dickerson of the Saint Club seems a friendly sort of chap and I bet he could set you up.