8 posts tagged “the saint”

I was, of course, referring to Simon Templar, or at least the TV incarnation of him as played by Roger Moore. For today I spotted the following down the road from the office:

It’s a beautifully maintained Volvo 1800S from 1967 (and yes, I could tell without looking at the registration certificate).
   A few hours before there was this beautiful 1959 MGA hardtop on the other side of Latimer Park:    Earlier today, I also spotted a Karmann Ghia Typ 3 and yesterday, a 1972 Volkswagen Typ 4.
   Christchurch seems to be the home of many a classic car—two months ago, I came across a beautiful old Ford Falcon Wagon. These Cantabrians seem to love their classics.

Show us a fictional character that you have been a fan of since your childhood.
Submitted by Jack Yan.

That’s two Vox Hunts from yours truly this week. Since I wrote it, I should answer it.

   This chap would have to qualify, being the Saint I grew up with, rather than Roger Moore. I’m pretty sure that Leslie Charteris, the Singaporean-born Leslie Bowyer-Yin, intended Simon Templar to be a Chinese bloke, but just as I didn’t blink when the cinematic Felix Leiter went from a white Texan to an African–American in the James Bond films, so what if a Caucasian is the Saint?
   Since then I have seen all the colour Roger Moore episodes and read many of Charteris’s stories. I even saw the pilot where Australian actor, Andrew Clarke, played a Templar-with-a-mo, as well as the Val Kilmer movie which tried to get back to the literary character, with Simon Templar’s numerous aliases.

What do you love most about your job?

That the only other person who could possibly have the same experiences is the fictional Simon Templar, except I don’t get shot at.

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!

There’s now a second video from the documentary The Saint Steps in … to Colour on YouTube, detailing how scriptwriter Terry Nation would rehash his scripts for different series. This would be fine years apart, but one week he got caught out on US television when The Saint was rerun with a new episode of The Baron.
   Goodness, de Vere before he met Audrey!
   Ian Ogilvy provides the narration.

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.)

Some more “easy” questions from my TV Trivia account at Facebook, and the percentage for each choice. Correct answers in bold.
   As mentioned, someone out there is having fun with all my wrong answers about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and EastEnders.

In Life on Mars, which old movie is often referred to through the series’ characters, songs and dialogue?
Casablanca (16.7)
Citizen Kane (50.0)
The Wizard of Oz (0.0)
Gone with the Wind (16.7)
skipped (16.7)

In Mission: Impossible, who never smoked?
Jim Phelps (20.0)
Barney Collier (80.0)
Cinnamon Carter (0.0)
Willy Armitage (0.0)
skipped (0.0)

In Minder, who sang the title song?
Paul McCartney (0.0)
Tony Christie (100.0)
Dennis Waterman (0.0)
Gerard Kenny (0.0)
skipped (0.0)

In The Paradise Club, what was the nationality of Danny’s heavy, Jonjo O’Brady?
Polish (16.7)
Irish (0.0)
Scottish (16.7)
Jamaican (50.0)
skipped (16.7)

In The Professionals, what was the name of the head of the squad?
Morris Cowley (33.3)
George Cowley (0.0)
John Steed (66.7)
Harry Malone (0.0)
skipped (0.0)

In The Saint, what was the licence plate shown on Simon Templar’s Volvo P1800 and 1800S?
NUV 647E (62.5)
71 DXC (25.0)
77 GYL (0.0)
ST 1 (0.0)
skipped (12.5)

   The majority of people, so far, think that John Steed led CI5 in The Professionals. The Paradise Club one gets me—I thought the clue was in the name Jonjo O’Brady, yet no one so far has chosen ‘Irish’ as his nationality. It was meant to be an easy giveaway! And the last one, every time you saw Simon Templar’s car, the registration was quite clear—ST 1—yet this has never been chosen.

Regular visitors may have noticed two renditions of ‘Avenues and Alleyways’, the theme from The Protectors, by Mitch Murray and Peter Callander and originally sung by Tony Christie, on this blog. One is from jazz singer Rinaldi, and presented here in full, and the other is a shortened version performed by Chris Moyles on The X Factor—Simon Cowell’s other show.
   I’m not sure if non-Brits know of X, but here’s their chance to see Simon being less of a prick—and realize he does heap praise when the performance is good. Moyles sounds like he fudged the shortened chorus a tad (I believe it is meant to be a mixture of the first and second choruses, and the backing vocalists seem to be singing something different toward the end), but I prefer this key to Christie’s original, plus the arrangement is rather nice.
   Rinaldi lacks the oomph, but the visuals—a parody of The Saint, Get Carter and swinging London—more than make up for it. He delivers a more loungey version, which is very pleasant on the ears.
   It shows that a lot of these old Brit themes are still in the public consciousness after all these years—‘Avenues’ was more of a hit for Christie when he revived it in 2000, and it certainly was a hit for Moyles and Rinaldi. I remember when 1969’s ‘We Have All the Time in the World’ from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service caught on again in the 1980s after it was used for UK TV advertising.
   Interestingly, as I discussed with my Brit friends, the Athertons, after they moved down to New Zealand, I seem to have more in common with them than many of the locals, in sense of humour and tastes. The former is down to the similarities between Cantonese and British humour, but the latter could only have come from being brainwashed by Lew Grade and his TV shows in my formative years. And I still carry a wee passport with Dieu et Mon Droit on the front.