On This Day In History Actor Roger Moore Was Born

On This day in 1927 British actor Roger Moore was born in London.

The world famous actor who portrayed The Saint on TV and James Bond in films recently died at age 89. He delivered his autobiography to his publisher only two weeks before he died.

You can read about Roger Moore's life and work at Biography.com via the below link:

https://www.biography.com/people/roger-moore-9413743

The Saint Of Smooth - The Saint: Seasons 1 & 2 On DVD

I've been watching a DVD copy of The Saint: Seasons 1&2, which was a Christmas gift I received from my daughter and her boyfriend.

I've been a huge fan of The Saint since the British TV program first aired on American TV in the early 1960s when I was a teenager. I went on to read Leslie Charteris' novels and short stories about Simon Templar.

Rober Moore's Templar was a cool, witty and tough globe-traveling crime fighter (although The Saint himself was a Robin Hood-type of crook).

Although I would later dislike Roger Moore's light and comedic portrayal of Ian Fleming's iconic character James Bond, I thought his portrayal of Leslie Charteris' Simon Templar was near perfect.

I enjoyed listening to the DVD's audio commentary and hearing the clever, classy and amusing Moore and the TV program's producers discuss the series and the episodes' back stories.

You can read more about the DVD from www.shoutfactory.com:

All 39 heavenly episodes from Seasons 1&2 of THE SAINT

Modern-day Robin Hood. Wealthy man of mystery. Debonair rogue. Call Simon Templar what you will, but never cross THE SAINT. A timeless figure of adventure since his creation by Leslie Charteris in 1928, The Saint has thrilled adventure aficionados with his exploits in a variety of media, including novels, movies, and radio—but nowhere was the dashing Mr. Templar more indelibly realized than in his 1960s television series, starring the perfectly cast Roger Moore in the title role.

Seasons One and Two of The Saint set the stage for what would become a six season run on television, and paved the way for the dashing Roger Moore to take on the role of an even more famous man of action later in his career. With guest starring appearances by such notables as Oliver Reed (Tommy, Gladiator), Academy Award-winning actress Julie Christie (Darling, Doctor Zhivago) and a pair of beauties from the spy classic Goldfinger (Honor Blackman and Shirley Eaton), The Saint is a wild and witty adventure that is every bit as fun and exciting today as it was when it first aired.
Bonus Features

• Audio Commentary On "The Talented Husband" And "The Saint Plays With Fire" By Roger Moore, Robert S. Baker (Executive Producer), And Johnny Goodman (Associate Producer)
• Audio Commentary On "Luella" By Roy Ward Backer (Director) And Sue Lloyd (Guest Star).
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• http://www.amazon.com/Saint-Seasons-1-2/dp/B00S4YGV16/ref=sr_1_4?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1451877697&sr=1-4&keywords=the+saint+season+1+and+2 

You can watch the first intro to The Saint, in which Roger Moore speaks to the camera, via the below link. I love it when a halo appears over his head when his name is first spoken and then the Edwin Ashley theme song kicks in: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIEblgU_z50   

'The Saint: The Complete Series" Starring Roger Moore Released On DVD

I did not care for Roger Moore's light and comic portrayal of James Bond, but as a teenager in the 1060s I was very fond of his portrayal of Leslie Charteris' Simon Templar, otherwise known as "The Saint."

The below announcement was released by www.shoutfactory.com:

When sinners strike, call on THE SAINT!

Modern-day Robin Hood. Wealthy man of mystery. Debonair rogue. Call Simon Templar what you will, but never cross THE SAINT. A timeless figure of adventure since his creation by Leslie Charteris in 1928, The Saint has thrilled adventure aficionados with his exploits in a variety of media, including novels, movies, and radio—but nowhere was the dashing Mr. Templar more indelibly realized than in his 1960s television series, presented here in one outstanding collection: The Saint - The Complete Series.

Starring the perfectly-cast Roger Moore as Simon Templar, The Saint was a benchmark in the lifespan of the character, and a stepping stone to Moore taking on the role of an even more well-known man of action later in his career. Featuring thrilling acts of derring-do, beautiful places (and people), and a sly wit, this complete set of all episodes from The Saint are a heavenly addition to your collection.

With guest star appearances by Oliver Reed (Tommy, Gladiator), Academy Award-winning actress Julie Christie (Darling, Doctor Zhivago), Donald Sutherland (The Dirty Dozen), Edward Woodward (TV's "The Equalizer"), a bevy of Bondian beauties (Goldfinger's Honor Blackman and Shirley Eaton, as well as Lois "Miss Moneypenny" Maxwell), and many more.

Whether you're a longtime fan or a newcomer to the series, it's time to say "Halo!" to The Saint.

Bonus Features

• Audio Commentary On Select Episodes
• Behind The Scenes With Sir Roger Moore As Director   

Sean Connery Voted Best James Bond Actor In CBS Poll

CBSNews.com offers a piece on the poll taken on which actor best portrayed Ian Fleming's iconic James Bond character.

Over the past 50 years there have been 23 official James Bond films, and the character has been portrayed by six different actors. So who was the best Bond?

Americans strongly favor the first man to portray the character in film, with 51 percent picking Sean Connery as the best James Bond.

Connery originated the role in the 1962 film "Dr. No." He would go on to star in five more Bond adventures, in addition to the non-official 1983 Bond film, "Never Say Never Again."

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-poll-who-was-the-best-james-bond/

You can also watch Sean Connery's introduction as Bond in Dr No via the below link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xDj3NRYTU8

Note: I agree that Sean Connery was the best James Bond, but I would rank Timothy Dalton as the second best and George Lazenby as the third best.

Timothy Dalton offered film viewers a harder, more serious Bond than the previous Bond, Roger Moore, and although their were some silly bits in his two Bond films, I thought they were well done.

George Lazenby was a good Bond, in my view, considering that he had never acted before, and he had to follow Sean Connery. He looked like Ian Fleming's Bond and he did the fight scenes very well. Had he continued as Bond he might have grown into a very good Bond. I also think On Her Majesty's Secret Service is one of the best Bond films. 

As for Pierce Brosnan, he had some good moments as Bond, but I was not too thrilled with the films he starred in.

As for Roger Moore, I liked him as the Saint on TV when I was a teenager, but I didn't like his light-hearted portrayal of Bond and I didn't like the silly films he starred in.

Lastly, I'm glad that the film producers have returned to making Bond films thrillers, instead of silly comedies, and Daniel Craig is a good Bond, even he does not look like Fleming's Bond.

I think the producers should have hired Clive Owen instead of Craig. Owen would have perhaps offered a Bond to rival Sean Connery.

I'm looking forward to seeing who the next Bond actor will be.

The Best Of The Saint

Allan Massie at the British newspaper the Telegraph offers a piece on the return of the "Saint," Leslie Charteris' fictional character.

Nostalgia, nostalgia, there’s nothing like nostalgia. This, or something like it, will be the reaction of many elderly , or indeed middle-aged, folk to the news that Hodder is bringing Simon Templar, alias “The Saint”, back to life, or at least back into print. Admittedly, the Saint was himself middle-aged, even if also ageless, when we first read him as schoolboys, or when Roger Moore played him with effortless charm on television.

He belongs to the Twenties, to the gentlemen-adventurers who went about biffing baddies and righting wrongs in light-hearted but also ruthless manner. There is a touch of Wodehouse’s Psmith in his persiflage, a touch too of Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion (at least as Campion appeared in Allingham’s early novels). But it is in the company of Sapper’s Bulldog Drummond and Dornford Yates’s Jonathan Mansel and Richard Chandos that he really belongs.

...The Saint is wholly preposterous; that is part of the charm. His creator, Leslie Charteris, must have known this but, at least in the early books, he delighted in his creation, and wrote with an infectious exuberance, often wittily.

You can read rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9668777/The-absurd-irresistible-Simon-Templar-lives-on.html

Hodder & Stoughton, publisher of The Best of the Saint, Volume 1, offers a a selection of the very best of the Saint stories from the early years and an introduced by Ken Follett.

'I am the Saint - you may have heard of me. Just a twentieth-century privateer. In my small way I try to put right a few of the things that are wrong with this cock-eyed world' Simon Templar, aka the Saint.

On the side of the law and yet outside it, the Saint, exciting, debonair and very slightly disreputable, lives for adventure. Here he is at his ebullient best, spreading terror among London's drug dealers, rescuing a lady crook from distress and much, much more.

Leslie Charteris was born in Singapore and moved to England in 1919. He left Cambridge University early when his first novel was accepted for publication. He wrote novels about the Saint throughout his life becoming, alongside Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming, one of the 20th century's most prolific and popular authors.

Note: I'm a fan of the Saint. Although I'm not fond of Roger Moore's portrayal of James Bond, I grew up in the 1960's watching Moore as the Saint on TV. I later saw the older films with George Sanders as the Saint and read the Leslie Charteris' novels. 

Roger Moore and his son are producing a new TV series on the Saint with a young actor portraying Simon Templar. You can read about Moore and the new series via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/02/roger-moore-patron-saint-of-smooth.html 

Roger Moore: Patron Saint Of Smooth

Daphne Lockyen at the British newspaper the Telegraph offers a good piece on the amusing, intelligent, and self-deprecating 85-year-old actor Roger Moore.

Moore talks about how he and his son are producing a new series based on The Saint, a character, Moore portrayed on TV in the Sixties.

As you might expect, this elder statesman of British acting is charm personified. He is also full of pithy one-liners, protecting his privacy with mots justes. Any big regrets? “I’d be an ungrateful b------ if I did; I’ve been so incredibly lucky.”

Moore probably learned how to use the art of suave humour to handle tricky situations from playing Bond and his precursor, The Saint’s Simon Templar – the rakish character with a Robin Hood morality that we are here today to discuss. Moore and his eldest son, Geoffrey, are co-producers on an American television remake of The Saint. The British series, based on the novels by Leslie Charteris, occupied seven years of the actor’s life during the Sixties.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/9843924/Roger-Moore-patron-Saint-of-smooth.html

Moore also has a book out on James Bond, the iconic Ian Fleming character Moore portrayed in the Seventies.

As I've noted here before, I was not a fan of Moore's lighthearted approach to Bond, but as a teenager in the Sixties I liked Moore very much in The Saint. I look forward to watching the new series.     

A Q & A With John Glen, Director of 'Licence To Kill' And Seven Other James Bond Films

Peter Howell at thestar.com offers an interesting Q & A with John Glen, the director of eight James Bonds, including one of my favorites, Licence to Kill.

With Roger Moore, he’s a fairly light actor, not a hard-edged one, and he always used to say to me, “Oh, what would the kids think?” He was always very conscious of that. He’s more of a personality actor. He’s very, very good and very charming and very good with his one-liners and humour. All his films had to be designed that way, I think, so that Roger could do his best with what he’s comfortable with.

And funnily enough, looking back at the two films that I did with Timothy Dalton, The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill, I find him to be quite similar to the new Bond. He and Daniel are both harder-edged Bonds. I think Timothy was before his time. You look at Licence to Kill now and it keeps up. It’s more in vogue now than when I shot it, I think. I still think it’s one of the best Bonds, certainly the best that I directed.

... Up until now, I’ve always thought that probably Goldfinger had the best original story, because we’ve now run out of original Fleming stories. But I think Skyfall really got that; I’d certainly rank it amongst the top three.

I’d say The Spy Who Loved Me was the best one I did with Roger — and it’s his favourite, too — and I’m still very fond of Licence to Kill.

You can read the rest of the interview via the below link:

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/article/1299261--john-glen-james-bond-s-main-director-q-a

Note: I agree with John Glen that Licence to Kill is one of the best Bond films.

Although I believe Sean Connery is the best Bond actor, Timothy Dalton in my view is the second best actor to portray James Bond.

He is a very good actor and he looks and acts like Ian Fleming's James Bond. I wish he had made more Bond films.

I also like Robert Davi as the drug lord villain in the film. Murderous, vicious and a bit crazed, Davi is one of the best villains since the Sean Connery-Bond films from the 1960s.

The supporting cast is also very good, including the two women in the film, Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto, who offer strong performances as well as being very attractive.

The other good supporting cast includes Anthony Zerbe as a criminal associate to Davi, and a nasty young Benicio Del Toro as Davi's henchman. David Hedison portrays Bond's CIA pal, Felix Leiter, repeating the role he portrayed in Live and Let Die, and Desmond Llewellyn gives an expanded performance as "Q" as he aids Bond' in the field.      

You can read my earlier post on Licence to Kill via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2012/01/look-back-at-timothy-dalton-as-james.html

Everything Or Nothing: James Bond Celebrates 50 Years On Screen

 

DigitalSpy.com offers an interesting piece on the James Bond documentary called Everything or Nothing.

Sandwiched between the Bond 50 Blu-ray collection and next month's Skyfall comes Everything or Nothing, a documentary celebrating 5 decades of 007. Helmed by Fire in Babylon's Stevan Riley, it tells the story of how James Bond leapt from the pages of Ian Fleming's hard-edged spy novels to become Hollywood's most durable movie franchise.

The talking heads range from friends of Fleming, to series producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, to five of the six James Bond stars (Sean Connery is conspicuously absent), as Riley cleverly weaves in footage from the Bond films to help illustrate the narrative.

The doc doesn't just focus on 007's big screen outings, however - author Fleming's life is covered in detail, with the former intelligence officer emerging as Bond's true alter ego, a man with a penchant for cigarettes, alcohol and women.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a408344/everything-or-nothing-review-james-bond-celebrates-50-years-on-screen.html

Battle Of The Bonds: James Bond Action Figures Battle Each other In Clever Stop-Action Parody

Wired.com offers an interesting piece on a stop-action film parody of the James Bond films.

The James Bond action figures modeled after the actors who portrayed Bond - Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Daniel Craig and others - swap insults in this clever, silly and amusing short film.

The parody is especially amusing to me, as my daughter gave me the black tux-wearing Sean Connery action figure from Dr No a few years ago as a present. The gift was given partly as a joke, as she knows I am a big Ian Fleming & Sean Connery/Bond fan.

My stepson later gave me the scuba diving Sean Connery action figure from Thunderball. The action figures are on my book shelves.

You can read the Wired.com piece and watch the parody via the below link:

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/05/battle-of-the-bonds/