TV
The Saint (ITV Action, Simon Dutton, Christine Kavanagh)
A second TV revival for Leslie Charteris’s long established character The Saint (first seen in 1928). After the sixties version with Roger Moore and the 1970’s with Ian Olgilvy the late 1980’s gave us Simon Dutton as the debonair Simon Templar, a freelance adventurer who specalises in helping damsels in distress.
The show opened with curiously dated opening titles that were very Saint like but seemed lacking in lustre but it was good to see that the producers had retained the services of one of the leading lights of the original TV version of the series, Robert S Baker, with a credit as consultant. Simon Dutton was more like a bank manager than a super smooth international man of mystery though but the standard of guest stars was high including the likes of Gayle Hunnicut (a Saint regular actually) and David Ryall (as Teale)
There was much finance involvement by TV Channels world wide so there were episodes set in France, Australia and Germany, always handy for securing an overseas audience although this was also a drawback as it made for a slightly disjointed feel with different crew behind the cameras for each. The Australia set one Fear in Fun Park was quite different from the rest of the series too.
In this series Templar quite often drove a special upgraded Jenson Interceptor (1976 model).
Cast: SIMON DUTTON as Simon Templar; CHRISTINE KAVANAGH as Katrina; DAVID RYALL as Inspector Teale
Characters created by Leslie Charteris / Consultant: Robert S Baker / Music: Serge Franklin / Titles: Emerald City Productions / Executive Producers: Dennis E. Doty, Jacky Stoller, Jean Chalopin / Producers: Christopher Neame, Sue Milliken
UK / ITV Network Saint – London Weekend Television – Saint Productions – Taffner Ramsay / 6×90 minutes / 1989