YMMV / The Saint

Franchise-wide

• Complete Monster: See here.

The Books

• Anvilicious: A scene where Simon Templar rescues the daughter of a Jewish financier is followed by a paragraph in which anti-semitism and Nazism are denounced in the bluntest possible terms. It's totally out of place in the novel, but remains an extraordinary (for its time—the novel was written in 1935) and necessary warning of the evils of Nazi Germany.
• Bizarro Episode:The Man Who Liked Ants which features The Saint stopping world domination by ants. Seriously. A Mad Scientist breeds ants to grow in size and intelligence, believing them to be a 'purer' and more admirable life form cheated out of its glory by the evolution of fallible and in-fighting prone humanity. Templar kills the ant queen and her nest before it can hatch. It's also a weird episode, because it's one of the few times you actually see Templar afraid and briefly has the heebie-jeebies about insects for a little while following it.
• Evil Is Cool: Rayt Marius, a Bond villain two decades before Bond existed. Marius makes a bigger impact than any other villain in the series. Not only is he completely diabolical, he's utterly suave, devilishly intelligent, (to the point of arguably being the only foe of Simon's to actually match him in intellect), and a genuine Hero Killer. Leslie surely recognized this: for a character who only appeared in two books (and posthumously in one short story), Marius is the closest Simon ever had to a real arch-enemy, and he's referenced even decades after his in-universe death.
• Fair for Its Day: Compared to his British (roughly) contemporaries Bulldog Drummond and Richard Hannay, Simon Templar is astonishingly forward-thinking in terms of ethnicity. This doubtless can be traced to Charteris' own Asian-European heritage. There are only a couple of times in the entire Charteris-written oeuvre that any positive character uses an ethnic slur, and each time Charteris is careful to point out that said character is reacting from their upbringing, not their conviction. Charteris is equally forward-thinking in portraying Patricia and Simon's relationship. At a time when American adventure heroes had to settle for "constant companion" Margo Lane or "fiancee" Nita Van Sloan, Pat & Simon are clearly living together; while their sexual relationship is never discussed in detail, it is made quite clear that they are lovers, with no negative consequences (at least in the Charteris stories).
• Literary Agent Hypothesis: Charteris plays with the notion in his notes for The First Saint Omnibus.
• Values Resonance: Charteris' whole-handed condemnation of antisemitism and fascism is just as necessary nowadays as it was in the 1920s and 1930s when the Saint stories were just starting off. Charteris predicted WWII ten years before it started and the Fascist takeover of France only two years before it happened, and in each circumstance, Charteris was perfectly accurate in highlighting the xenophobic and jingoistic attitudes that ultimately provoked the war.

The Series

• Accidental Innuendo: This line from "Little Girl Lost":
  Simon: She was feeling hungry, went out looking for a carpet.
• Adaptation Displacement: The television series is by far the best-known iteration of the franchise.
• Awesome Music: The series theme, composed by Leslie Charteris himself and arranged by Edwin Astley.
• Bizarro Episode:
  • Early on, The Saint would help friends and strangers. Then he started to doing the occasional espionage job for the government. Then, in "The House On Dragon's Rock" (an adaptation of The Man Who Liked Ants, above) he stops a Mad Scientist's giant ant and its eggs from taking over the world. The ant is, of course, a Nuclear Mutant.
  • "Sibao", adapted from "The Questing Tycoon", sees The Saint emroiled in voodoo.
• Can't Un-Hear It: When many people think of Simon Templar, they immediately think of Roger Moore.
• Funny Moments: In "The Rhine Maiden", Simon enters a train compartment containing an old English couple. to climb out the window to get to the carriage where the villain is. The woman remarks that he must be foreign, because he didn't close the window.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In season two's "Marcia", the titular actress is almost killed when a prop gun is loaded with real bullets. This eerily predicts what happened to Brandon Lee on The Crow (1994).
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The first Season Finale "The Charitable Countess" has Simon helping street urchins by stealing jewellery from aristocrats. Many years later, Roger Moore became a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. On a related note, "The Lawless Lady" has him donate the villains' loot to an orphanage, while "The Revolution Racket" has him donate money he's swindled from revolutionaries to UNICEF.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In "Louella", Simon impersonates an MI-5 agent. The woman he was tricking even remarked that it was great to have James Bond on her side. This was ten years before Roger Moore made his debut as Bond. The same episode guest stars David Hedison, who later played opposite Moore as Felix Leiter.
  • In addition to that, Lois Maxwell (the original Miss Moneypenny) guest-starred in two different episodes during the 5th series in 1966, seven years before Moore would go on to play Bond, thus also making them working together in the Bond films an unintentional case of I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine.
  • Season three's "Sibao" sees The Saint deal with voodoo in Haiti, almost a decade before Live and Let Die saw Moore deal with the same subject.
  • Season five's "Island of Chance" sees the villains try to kill Simon with a snake in his hotel room, just like in Live and Let Die. Also, when Simon interrogates a villain on gold bullion, he replies that Goldfinger gave it to him from Fort Knox.
  • In season one's "The Loaded Tourist", Andrew Sachs is working at a hotel, though he's the manager rather than the porter.
  • Season five's "The Persistent Patriots" has Templar jokingly compare Inspector Teal with Sherlock Holmes. A decade later, Moore would star in Sherlock Holmes in New York.
  • While Roger Moore never got the chance to face Ernst Stavro Blofeld as James Bond (officially speaking), he encounters the two actors who jointly portayed Blofeld in From Russia with Love and Thunderball in this series. Anthony Dawson, who physically portrayed Blofeld, appears in "The Arrow of God", and Eric Pohlmann, who provided Blofeld's voice, appears in "Teresa" and "The Revolution Racket".
  • In "The Man Who Could Not Die" the title character (an M Is For Manly businessman who regards Simon as someone much less tough than he is.) is played by Patrick Allen who along with Roger Moore appears in The Wild Geese.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Roger Moore himself qualifies as this for viewers too young to have watched The Saint on original broadcast. Despite being the star of the show, today he is much better known as James Bond, a role he took on a few years after leaving The Saint.
  • Shirley Eaton appeared in the very first episode "The Talented Husband". Two years later, she would appear in one of the most iconic scenes in film history, when she was painted from head to toe in gold in Goldfinger.
  • A pre-stardom Julie Christie played the titular Girl of the Week in "Judith".
  • Barbara Shelley, at the time in the early stages of her Hammer films career, appeared in Season 1's "The Covetous Headsman".
  • Honor Blackman appears in the Season 1 episode "The Arrow of God", aired around the same time she became famous for her role in another 1960s ITV spy show.
  • Roger Delgado appears in two episodes: "The Golden Journey" in Season 1 as the Hotel Manager and "Locate and Destroy" in Season 5 as Captain Rodriguez. Today, he is best remembered as the original Master in Doctor Who.
  • Ingrid Pitt appears as an uncredited role as a poolside sunbather in "The Bunco Artists".
  • Oliver Reed also played villains Joe Catelli in "The King of the Beggars" and Aristides in "Sophia".
  • Donald Sutherland made two early guest appearances - in "The Happy Suicide" as the artist McCleery and "Escape Route" as prisoner John Wood.
  • Patrick Troughton played Police Inspector Gambetti in "Interlude in Venice", which was broadcast just four weeks before his debut in his most famous role as The Second Doctor.
  • A young Paul Darrow (Avon in Blake's 7) appears as Omar in "The Gadic Collection".
  • Hans in "The Rhine Maiden" is played by Anthony Booth, who would later be best known for playing Mike Rawlins in Till Death Us Do Part and Sid Noggett in the Confessions of a... Series.
  • A policeman in "The Contract" and Alain in "The Abductors" are played by Nicholas Courtney, a few short years before he would take on his beloved long running role as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in Doctor Who.
  • An uncredited native from "The Golden Frog" is played by Dino Shafeek, who would later be best known for playing Muhammed in It Ain't Half Hot, Mum and Ali Nadeem in Mind Your Language.
  • Howard Mitchell from "The Persistent Parasites" is played by Donald Hewlett, who would later be best known for playing Colonel Reynolds in It Ain't Half Hot, Mum and Lord Meldrum in You Rang, M'Lord?.
  • Mrs. Barlow from "The Crooked Ring" is played by Doris Hare, who would later be best known for playing Mrs. Butler in On the Buses.
  • Wally Kinsall from "The Loving Brothers" is played by Ed Devereaux, who would later be best known for playing Matt Hammond in Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.
  • A party boy from "The Power Artists" is played by Geoffrey Hughes, who would later be best known for playing Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances and Twiggy in The Royle Family.
  • Pearl from "Marcia" is played by Janet Davies, who would later be best known for playing Mrs. Pike in Dad's Army.
  • Guido Naccaro from "The Damsel in Distress" and Ziggy Zaglan from "The Happy Suicide" is played by John Bluthal, who would later be best known for playing Frank Pickle in The Vicar of Dibley.
  • Chick from "The Man Who Gambled with Life" is played by John D. Collins, who would later be best known for playing Fairfax in 'Allo 'Allo!.
  • Smith from "Luella" is played by Julian Holloway, who would later be best known for his roles in the Carry On films.
  • Joe from "The Fellow Traveller" is played by Michael Bates, who would later be best known for playing Blamire in Last of the Summer Wine and Rangi Ram in It Ain't Half Hot, Mum.
  • Three guest roles from between 1964 and 1968 are played by Michael Robbins, who would later be best known for playing Arthur Rudge in On the Buses.
  • A bishop from "The Fiction Makers" two-parter is played by Nicholas Smith, who would later be best known for playing Mr. Rumbold in Are You Being Served?.
  • A Russian ship captain from "The Helpful Pirate" is played by Richard Marner, who would later be best known for playing Colonel von Strohm in 'Allo 'Allo!.
  • Owen Thomas from "The House on Dragon's Rock" is played by Talfryn Thomas, who would later be best known for playing Private Cheeseman in Dad's Army.
  • Johnny Fox from "Portrait of Brenda" is played by Trevor Bannister, who would later be best known for playing Mr. Lucas in Are You Being Served?.
  • Therese from "To Kill a Saint" is played by Valerie Leon, who would later be best known for her roles in the Carry On films.
  • Marco Di Cesari is played by Warren Mitchell, who would later be best known for playing Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part.
  • Milanov from "The Russian Prisoner" is played by Yootha Joyce, who would later be best known for playing Mildred Roper in Man About the House and George & Mildred.
  • A telephone operator from "The Desperate Diplomat" is played by Yutte Stensgaard, who would later be best known for playing Carmilla Karnstein in Lust for a Vampire.
• The Scrappy: Despite having been a major supporting player in the books for decades, Hoppy Uniatz appears in only one episode of the series, "The Careful Terrorist". Once you see the dialogue written for him and Percy Herbert's performance next to Moore's, you'll understand why it's for the better.
• Special Effects Failure: "The House On Dragon's Rock". Even Empire of the Ants has more convincing giant ant action.
• Values Dissonance:
  • "The Golden Journey" opens with Simon Templar suggesting that his friend could 'cure' his fiancée's Spoiled Brat attitude by hitting her every now and then. Interestingly, in the very next episode he specifically states: "I don't like men who slap women around", repeating the sentiment later.
  • Simon casually uses the word "negro" in "The Desperate Diplomat" (an episode made for the 1968-69 season, when even at the time that term was already on its way out in favour of "black"). Then there's his attitude to Chinese villains (making a slanty-eyed gesture in "The Gadget Lovers" and referring to Burt Kwouk's villain as Son Number One.

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