4 posts tagged “robert s. baker”

What fictional character do you relate to most and why?

Let’s see: what Chinese fictional character had to operate in the west, deal to the establishment, drive a rare two-door car, impersonate others, and have his adventures chronicled?
   Simon Templar.
   Pity he was always played by Caucasians on the screen, but I always thought he was Chinese, since his creator was. A new pilot is being made now, which, inter alia, Sir Roger Moore and his son Geoffrey are producing.

   TV trivia buffs might notice John Steed’s Rover SD1 from The New Avengers in the last car chase, reused here. It was also George Cowley’s Rover SD1 in the first season of The Professionals. Stingey British Leyland!

Again, from YouTube poster ZillakYT, are the first few minutes from another documentary revisiting an ITC classic—in this case, the colour episodes of the Roger Moore series The Saint. Ian Ogilvy, who succeeded Moore in the 1970s in Return of the Saint, narrates.
   The pre-title bit is hilarious, with the title card reading ‘Monte Carlo / not Elstree’. This was a nod to the fact that almost all Saint episodes, despite being set in Roma, Paris and other exotic locations, were filmed in England. What is interesting is just how angry Saint creator Leslie Charteris got with the producer, Robert S. Baker, and script supervisor Harry W. Junkin. A memorandum is read out by Ogilvy—and Charteris was pretty pissed!
   Sadly, Mr Ogilvy is cut off in mid-speech but I assume he was nearing the end of Charteris’s letter.

   (In case anyone is wondering why this post is in the Asian and Chinese groups on Vox, Leslie Charteris was originally Singaporean Chinese.)

I found these two videos on YouTube and those who love those old ITC TV series may enjoy them. It’s a pity The Persuaders’ one is so short, but the full thing is on the new DVD set. Boy, octogenarian Tony Curtis looks like he’s smoked a bit too much pot over the years, but Sir Roger Moore looks remarkably good (he was 78 when the documentary was filmed). The clip from We Were the Champions, a reunion of the stars of The Champions, is a bit longer and shows Damon, Bastedo and Gaunt seeing each other for the first time since their series ended in the late 1960s.
   I wish these were available as on separate DVDs or even as a chargeable download, since I already have a set of The Persuaders.

I was clearing some stuff off my hard drive and came across the above video. It’s from the Empire Awards, and reunites Tony Curtis and Roger Moore, the stars of the hit series The Persuaders. The series was Curtis’s first on the small screen, and if my understanding is correct, the two stars owned two-thirds of the show (Bob Baker the remainder).
   The Persuaders was a hit everywhere except the US, where it aired on ABC opposite Mission: Impossible, which was still riding high. Unlike the American show, The Persuaders did film on location for numerous episodes set in Europe, and was the most expensive series at the time, though there were many obvious ones where it was clearly England. For instance, one episode guest-starring Susan George only showed the actress in the UK; any scene which showed her character in a French location (e.g. Nice Airport) was played by a stand-in.
   Above, I was surprised to see how much Tony had changed, whereas Roger has maintained his physique, apart from having less hair and looking more wrinkled. But Tony’s warmth is still there: it often comes through in interviews, and he is clearly moved by his award.