| 1936 Film Footage of Leslie Charteris |
[Jan. 31st, 2011|01:27 am] |
Interested in seeing (and hearing) a relatively young Leslie Charteris on film? I recently stumbled across this 30-second clip from May 1936, of Charteris being interviewed about his experience on the Hindenburg's first voyage to the United States.
Side note for the history/zeppelin buffs: hitting the "previous/next video" buttons will take you to commentary from other Hindenburg passengers.
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| Saintly Stickfigure Sighting |
[Jan. 29th, 2011|08:42 pm] |
I just concluded a Saint book swap of a couple duplicates on Paperback Swap, and the other participant sent me an old news story.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38339576/ns/world_news-africa/
I vaguely remember hearing about it before - a couple in a small sailboat off South Africa aggravated a whale into leaping onto the boat itself - but take a look at pictures 1 and 5:
Looks very photoshopped to me - if not, staged - but look at the sail!
And here, on the front of the cabin:
I'm just surprised that the boat is named "Intrepid" instead of something a little more obviously Saintly. A giant haloed stickfigure on the sail isn't exactly subtle! |
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| Help finding a quote |
[May. 12th, 2010|08:32 pm] |
I'm afraid I don't have an interesting review or discussion topic, but I do have a question. A phrase from one of the Saint books has been running around in my head, but I can't remember the exact wording or what book it's in. So I'm posting here, in hopes that it might ring a bell with somebody.
There's a passage in one of the stories - and I'm 99% sure it was one of the *very* early, Saint gang-era adventures - that talks about the Saint's ritzy new apartment in London, and the fact that he doesn't have any money (at the moment) to pay for the rent, but the Saint isn't worried about it in the least. (Presumably because they'll find somebody to rob something will turn up.) The sentence I'm thinking of says something about "better to be hanged for a dead lion than a foot-and-mouth diseased lamb"...or something roughly along those lines. :P
I was certain I originally read it in Enter the Saint, but I've flipped through said book and found nothing...as well as a few other books with early Saint stories It's not life-or-death, but if it rings a bell with anyone, I'd love to know where to look!
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| A review of the Saint's later career |
[Sep. 17th, 2009|12:17 am] |
I know most of us prefer the original, Charteris-written Saint stories, but when there is a dearth of them at the library, what is one to do? Bite the (metaphorical) bullet and read the adaptations, of course!
The Saint on TV, The Saint Abroad, The Saint Returns, and Catch the Saint were all collaborations with Fleming Lee, starting with The Saint on TV, written in 1968. With the exception of Catch the Saint, every story was an adaption of an episode from the Roger Moore TV show. Not having seen the show, the plots were entirely new to me; I don't know whether they were seriously altered from their TV form.
On the whole, I wasn't immensely impressed; the collaborations have their own flavour, and the whimsical humour that I so love about the older Saint books seems to be missing. (The heroines, too, aren't anything special. I am of the humble opinion that the quality of Charteris' - or his ghostwriters' - heroines declined steadily after the 1950s. How on earth does Simon tolerate flighty, clueless, abominably ignorant females after the likes of Pat Holm and Loretta Page?) But they're still Saint stories, and Fleming Lee certainly did a good job writing about another author's character. I probably won't be adding these to my collection anytime soon, but they're pleasant light reading. :)
( And now for a very long review... )
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I also found a full-length novel, this one not written by Lee, but by Christopher Short.
( The Saint and the Hapsburg Necklace ) |
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| Here there be monsters - The Fantastic Saint |
[Jul. 28th, 2009|10:25 pm] |
Hello, fellow Saint fans!
I've been busily reading new-to-me Saint books, and thought I'd share a review. The latest two on my list were The Saint in Europe and The Fantastic Saint. I know someone's reviewed The Saint in Europe already, so I won't bother. But I haven't seen any mention of The Fantastic Saint, a collection of 6 short stories featuring Simon Templar in out-of-the-ordinary situations. I should say, even more out of the ordinary, even for the Saint. :)
( Trouble is one of the things that sort of happen to me, like other people have colds. )
Anyone else read The Fantastic Saint, or any of the stories by themselves? |
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| Charteris and the Hindenburg |
[Nov. 24th, 2008|08:06 pm] |
For anyone who gets the Weather Channel (of all things): you can catch a tiny glimpse of our favorite globe-trotting crime writer this week.
Their series "When Weather Changed History" is rerunning an episode on the crash of the Hindenburg. About seven minutes into it, they show some newsreel clips of passengers talking about the zeppelin's maiden voyage--and one of them is Leslie Charteris, monocle and all. :) It's only a couple of seconds long, but it's quite fascinating to see and also hear the genius behind the Saint.
The episode will air a couple of times a night through Saturday. |
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| News for fansd in the UK |
[Oct. 4th, 2008|01:31 am] |
Hi,
don't know haw many of you are or aren't subscribed to the Epistle ( The official mailing list of the saint club ) , but Hodder in the UK are doing a new print run of the Saint, but only a very small one so if they don't sell in spades that'll be it. Anyway here's all the details from the club sec.
I'm going to let you into a secret,
There are plans for more Saint books. Take yer pick as to whether you'd like
more reprints or new adventures (be they 21st century or period)-there are
plans for both.
But publishing is a business. And businesses have to make money, otherwise,
well, they go out of business. And one reason Saint books stopped in the
1980s was because they weren't making money.
The only way to see more Saint adventures in print is for us all to do our
best to make sure these anthologies sell well. Paraphrasing what Leslie said
about The Saint Sees It Through.
"Give them to your friends for Christmas. Have the pages separated and use
them to repair your living-room, instead of the ordinary wallpaper which is
so hard to get. Tear them up and use them for confetti. Give them to your
children for cutting out paper dolls. Use them for door stops, for squashing
cockroaches, for holding down the lid of the pressure cooker. Mount stamp
collections in them. Soak the ink out of the pages and boil it down to make
your own shoe polish. Let Junior chew up the pages to make spit balls. Use
them for bait to lure the termites out of the walls so that you can get them
with the DDT. Break them up and use them for kindling. Split the sheets with
a razor and use them for Kleenex. Keep several copies handy for throwing at
cats on the back fence, or to climb up on to reach the top shelves of the
closet. Do anything you like with them, but for Chris'sake buy thousands of
copies so."
.that we can get more Saint adventures in print.
Seriously, Hodders are giving these books a piddlingly small print run and
have virtually no budget to promote them. But if they don't sell, then Saint
books in the UK are pretty well doomed. I've done my best to spread the word
to as many relevant websites as possible but I'm open to suggestions. If you
can think of ways these books can be promoted-at no cost-or people/web sites
who should be told about them, then spread the word!
Ian
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