[PREV - BRAND_X] [TOP]
NAME_OF_THE_SAINT
September 28, 2005
In the beginning, there was Leslie Charteris,
who as a young man started writing a series of "Meet the Tiger" (1927)
stories about a Simon Templar, aka "The Saint".
SMELL_THE_TIGER_BURN
These stories are perfectly awful...
certainly they're some of the lowest
prose that I'm willing to slide my
eyeballs across -- and you may have
noticed that they've been rolling around
in some pretty disreputable troughs.
(Deep cracks?)
The Charteris Saint -- let's label him
that for convenience, if not accuracy --
underwent many changes throughout the CHASING_GHOSTS
several decades that Charteris (or
"Charteris") was writing the stories.
In the early stories he was a very British
character indulging in much light-hearted
nonsene babble -- somewhere between Bertie
Wooster and Peter Whimsey, though not as funny
as either.
As time went on, he toned down that act, and became
more suave/slick... some people say he became more
American, though I haven't noticed myself --
perhaps I have a blindspot for such things.
During that period, Charteris himself was not actually
writing all of the stories, and since many of his
ghosts were reportedly Americans, maybe the shift E.g. Theodore
in tone was inevitable. Sturgeon.
These stories were very popular, and began
being translated into other media a decade or
so after their inception... one of the earlier
ones was the George Sanders films. The Sanders
Saint had far more of Sanders in him than
Charteris, but then the original (I use the
term loosely) character (I use the term
loosely) was so thin, one could hardly blame
him.
I would guess I like the Sanders Saint the
best of all the incarnations: all snide
insinuations and sinister overtones as he walked
whistling through the dark foggy alleys of noir.
Perhaps predictably, this is The Saint that no
one seems to remember.
Sanders later went on to
do a series of films
about a precisely identical
character called "The
Falcon". Charteris
took the trouble to
sneer at these films in
one of his stories.
But then there's another Saint that's even
farther from the public mind, the Vincent
Price Saint -- these were a series of radio
shows, an artform now even more ignored than
the black and white film.
The Price Saint was very unusual --
oily, unctuous (whatever that
means), almost effeminate.
An interesting rendition...
The Man From
In the 60s, Roger Moore stepped UNCTUOUS
into the slot, doing the television
version that everyone seems to
remember as *The* Saint.
It's not an indefensible position
to insist that the Moore Saint is Reportedly,
definitive. Physically he was Charteris
pretty close to the way the Saint liked Moore's
was described, and the arch, blank, version best.
innocent expression he used so
often -- maybe it was his only
expression really -- had something
in common with the Charteris
stories.
In the early days, The Saint
was a con-man who conned con-men,
and his ability to project an
innocent lamb aura was one of
his main assets.
Notably, the Roger Moore Saint
There was another was a person with no visible
television Saint, means of support. To an
the Ian Ogilvy, American audience he seemed
which I refuse to like a very odd character --
say anything about. what did this man do for a
living? The idea that he was
a crook who preyed on crooks
Then in the 90s there was apparently too edgy for
was a somewhat problematic television, and instead you
filmed version of the were supposed to assume he was
Saint, starring Val independantly wealthy.
Kilmer.
Everyone really hated
this film, and I spent
some time puzzling
out why...
There are many things
one might dislike about
it -- it's portrayal of
the process of science The Toadkeeper called
is laughable, it's portrait this "the worst movie
of a female scientist he'd ever seen", and
is embarrassing. I'd guess this is why.
There are other things one might
like about it -- with Kilmer, the
Saint has become a man of many
disguises, many identities, though
his affectation is to always adopt
the name of an official Saint (i.e
a Catholic one). In some sense he
has no fixed identity, certainly he This "orphan"
has no given name -- his new bit was probably
history is that he escaped from an suggested by
orphanage at an early age, assuming a few lines
the name Templar out of a from the stories.
fascination with tales of knightly
adventure. At one point,
the Saint talks
The Saint breaks into the female about donating
scientist's apartment, studying the proceeds of
her environment to infer what a crime
kind of person she is, and which to his favorite
of his characters he needs to charity: a fund
assume to win her over. for orphans,
meaning himself.
Dangerbaby was impressed
by the wild leather boy
persona Kilmer used for
this role -- and I suspect
a lot of people's reaction
to the film is cultural, As for myself, Val
a difference in background Kilmer, will always
that determines how you have a positive glow
react to that particular image. about him because of
"Real Genius".
But the main thing that conditioned
the response to this film, the reason
that almost *no one* had a good word
to say about is simple: they wanted
more Moore Saint, and got Kilmer Saint
instead, and so went off complaining
about how inauthentic this rendition
was...
But what constant factor *is*
there that you can point to in
this long, slow evolution of this
astoundingly minor character?
At no point was The Saint ever
really much more than lightly
sketched in (a stick figure indeed).
Why would anyone declare
that one version is the
one correct one?
And conversely, why would anyone
bother to do yet another media
production under this name...
why not another "Falcon", why
not invent some new handle?
As properties go the Saint is the trashiest,
thinnest piece of cardboard imaginable...
What is there to the name of the Saint?
--------
[NEXT - UNCTUOUS]