#leslie charteris

[cantsayidont]

Video Killed the Radio Star

If you don't already feel sufficiently alienated from the culture of your generation, consider getting into old time radio. It's pretty easy to do: Radio was mainstream media from the 1930s well into the 1950s, and it hung on for quite a while after it started losing ground to television. There's a huge amount of programming in various genres, and a surprising amount of it survives; there was a cottage industry in OTR cassettes and CDs for many years, a lot of shows can be found in MP3 format without much effort, and some of it pops up regularly on streaming platforms.

The easiest way to get into it is if you're already got a fondness for some older Hollywood star: If they were a movie star between 1930 and 1960, there's a good chance they guest-starred in various radio shows, and they might even have had their own show for a while. For instance, do you like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall? Around 1950, they had their own syndicated radio adventure series, BOLD VENTURE, which was essentially an extended riff on their characters in the 1944 film version of TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT. Orson Welles, of course, was a big radio star, playing the lead on THE SHADOW in 1937–38 and then bringing his Mercury Theatre company to a number of different one-hour and half-hour radio series. Vincent Price starred for several seasons as Leslie Charteris's Simon Templar on THE SAINT. And almost everyone who was anyone showed up now and again on SUSPENSE or LUX RADIO THEATRE (which produced all-star one-hour adaptations of popular movies). If you're a Superman or Sherlock Holmes fan, the radio versions of those characters are a must — Holmes was a perennial presence on English-language radio for decades.

If you want something more modern, the British kept producing generally high-quality radio dramas in surprising volume until relatively recently, including a range of both adaptations and originals. Unlike American radio, the survival rate for older British programs from the '40s and '50s is poor, but the BBC has continued periodically airing its better material from the '70s through the '00s, a lot of which has been offered on cassette and CD. For instance, there were excellent BBC radio series dramatizing the Wodehouse Jeeves and Wooster stories (with Michael Hordern and Richard Briers); Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey series (with Ian Carmichael); and Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot mysteries (with John Moffat), along with standalone plays on programs like SATURDAY-NIGHT THEATRE. The big limitation with British radio dramas is that the number of British radio actors who can do convincing American accents is not high (and is definitely lower than the number who mistakenly think they can), and the availability of American actors who know how to act for radio is clearly even more limited, which can become a grating problem when dramatizing American material.

One of the reasons that listening to older (and/or British) radio shows will contribute to your cultural alienation is that it will make a lot of modern dramatic podcast series and audio dramatizations excruciating, because it will reveal to you how bad a lot of modern audio dramatists and performers are at this once commonplace art. (If you are or are contemplating doing a dramatic podcast or audio drama, please, for the love of dog, make a close study of radio shows created before you were born, and diversify enough to recognize the mediocrity of hacks like Dirk Maggs, who's been stinking up audio drama on two continents for four decades now.)

#old time radio #i actually hate the term old time radio #but it's a useful descriptor and it's not up to me #humphrey bogart #lauren bacall #orson welles #bold venture #vincent price #leslie charteris #sherlock holmes #superman #what ho jeeves #michael hordern #richard briers #dorothy l sayers #lord peter wimsey #ian carmichael #hercule poirot #john moffat #saturday night theatre #dirk maggs #radio #bbc radio

[mariocki]

The Saint: Vendetta for the Saint - Part 1 (6.15, ITC, 1969)

"Want some advice? Go easy."

"And mine to you is pull out - before I start breaking his world up."

"What?"

"You heard."

"Dear man, have you any idea what you're taking on?"

"No, but I'll pick it up as I go along."

"You won't get six feet. Well, maybe: laid out in your best suit."

#the saint #vendetta for the saint #itc #1969 #leslie charteris #jim o'connolly #john kruse #harry w. junkin #roger moore #ian hendry #rosemary dexter #aimi macdonald #george pastell #marie burke #fulton mackay #peter kristof #peter madden #guy deghy #charles houston #edward evans #malya nappi #eileen way #ooh we're really in the final stretch now. 1969! the show started in 1962‚ it had occupied most of the 60s by this point (a tumultuous and #culturally unique decade). here we hit the second two parter‚ coming quick after the first‚ but a very different fish: where the fiction #makers chose to go bigger‚ zanier‚ weirder (all laser beams and cartoonish villains‚ eccentric side characters and many #explosions) this second movie length outing instead takes a very standard Saint formula (he is sort of witness to a murder and so decides #to bring down the killer and mafia too) and just does it.. more thoroughly‚ i guess? takes advantage of the longer running time and what #was presumably a higher budget to simply add more spectacle to a solid Saint adventure. it works! this is pretty good! fancy location work #(at an actual location! the team shot extensively in Malta for this 2 parter)‚ a helicopter‚ car chases and gun battles. it's the series #finally realising what it's always wanted to be thanks to a last minute splurge of the coffers. pretty good stuff

[jamesbondlexicon]

It seems the creator of Simon Templar had a few things to say about 007 in March 1966

#james bond #magazine cover #the saint #leslie charteris #1966 #bond on the cover

[e--q]

Simon Templar aka The Saint

(Handmade Soft Toy Leopard inspired by the character created by Leslie Charteris and beautifully portrayed by Ian Ogilvy in the television series Return of the Saint)

~ Happy Birthday Ian Ogilvy ~

#Ian Ogilvy #Simon Templar #The Saint #Leslie Charteris #my art #my artwork #fanart #handmade plush #handmade soft toy #handmade stuffed animal #handmade #fabric creations #artist on tumblr #artist #leopard art #leopard

[zippocreed501]

AUTHOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

'It has done me little good to insist that in truth I have a rather poor imagination, and that therefore I find it much easier to steal plots from the newspapers than to dream them up. Obviously, I give them some artistic distortions and trimmings; but far more often than not the hard core of the story is something that intrigues me in real life.'

I have never been able to see why a fictional character should not grow up, mature, and develop, the same as anyone else. The same, if you like, as his biographer. The only adequate reason is that so far as I know no other fictional character in modern times has survived a sufficient number of years for these changes to be clearly observable. I must confess that a lot of my own selfish pleasure in the Saint has been in watching him grow up.'

'Who knows where an idea comes from? The Saint was just originally a character who came to life in my head not so long after I started writing, but he was not the first character I thought of. He was, as a matter of fact, the fifth. I went on and created two or three other characters, each of them in an individual book. And then I suppose I got lazy, or I got the idea that it was better to continue and build up one character than to spread yourself around among a dozen. I looked back over the characters I had created so far and picked the Saint, liked him the best, and decided to go on with him.'

Author Extraordinaire Leslie Charteris (Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin)

#leslie charteris #author extraordinaire #the saint #writing advice #writblr #writing inspiration #books #literature #pulp #adventure #fiction

[patart-illustrations-stuff]

Simon Templar

THE SAINT

#the saint #leslie charteris #roger moore #simon templar

[atomic-chronoscaph]

The Saint - art by Matt Baker (1948)

#matt baker #the saint #avon comics #comic art #simon templar #leslie charteris #1940s #1948

[ronanziriano]

Arrest the Saint (1951) by Leslie Charteris. 1956 edition published by Avon 708, cover art by Ray Johnson.

#arrest the saint #whump #vintage whump #chair tied #book cover #guns cw #leslie charteris #ray johnson #the saint

[pulpsandcomics2]

The Saint Goes On by Leslie Charteris      (Avon, 1943)

#mystery novel #the saint #leslie charteris

[contentabnormal]

This week we present Vincent Price as Simon Templar in The Saint adventure "The Shipboard Mystery"!

#vincent price #simon templar #the saint #leslie charteris #radio #horror host #the shipboard mystery #the invisible man returns #painting #portraiture #errol flynn #agnes moorhead #margo lane #the shadow #the adventures of captain fabian

[movie-titlecards]

The Saint (1997)

My rating: 5/10

Imagine basing your entire personality around a single gimmick, and then choosing such an utterly dull one.

#The Saint #Phillip Noyce #Leslie Charteris #Jonathan Hensleigh #Wesley Strick #Val Kilmer #Elisabeth Shue #Rade Serbedzija #Youtube

[professorpski]

The Saint: Lida or That Generous Early 1960s Silhouette

Although we often think of the 1960s as the decade of youth, of the model Twiggy, and of the flat-chested pre-adolescent silhouette for women as the look of the decade, the early 1960s was different. Decades have never quite overlaid onto the large shifts in fashion, and the early 1960s looked much like the 1950s with soft shoulders, generous bosom, tight waists, and generous hips. In short, an hourglass.

The silhouette still popular in 1964 was that hourglass look. Jeanne Moody played Lida who was absolutely packed into her metallic, brocade evening dress which manages to have both a low-cut front and a low-cut back. Some kind of foundation garment squeezes in her waistline to emphasize the hourglass and her dress has a long pleated tail which adds even more sway to her hips as she walks. She played the older sister who was being blackmailed while Erica Rogers played her younger sister and you can see two different hairstyles of the era as well. The younger sister wears a short hair cut that was then teased into a bubble shape, kind of a pixie cut on hairspray, while the older sister has lush, longer locks with waves set into them.

The Saint starring Roger Moore ran from 1962 through 1969. It was adapted from the stories of Leslie Charteris and watching it is a great way to see the fashions of the era. He was always beautifully tailored and many of the settings are among wealthy people and the fashions of that class appear accordingly. I can see them on something called MeTV, but there are other places that offer the shows as well.

#1960s fashions #1950s fashions #costume history #dress history #fashion history #silhouettes #the saint #Roger Moore #jeanne moody #erica rogers #fashion on film #1960s hair #lida #leslie charteris

[mariocki]

The Saint: The Gadic Collection (5.27, ITC, 1967)

"He believed that people who are foolish deserve to be separated from their money."

"Well, I must confess, I feel the same way myself sometimes."

#the saint #the gadic collection #1967 #itc #leslie charteris #freddie francis #philip broadley #roger moore #peter wyngarde #georgia brown #michael ripper #martin benson #andre van gyseghem #nicole shelby #hedger wallace #henry lincoln #paul darrow #geoffrey cheshire #ann tirard #andreas malandrinos #bakshi prem #and so s5 draws to a close. this production block had actually consisted of 30 odd episodes but a couple were held over for s6 which would #take more than a year to appear on screens. quite why that happened‚ as with much of the scheduling and itinerary of this show‚ remains a #mystery to me for now. this is a suitably grand finále‚ with a strong cast. curiously there is no credited writer onscreen (network credit #Broadley on the dvd sleeve). Wyngarde returns as guest star‚ but gets no fave spotted post from me this time; I've also largely tried to #avoid images with him in for this post. unfortunately a fairly good ep is rendered distasteful (and has fully understandably been dropped #from the current itv4 repeats) by one of the worst and most offensive cases of brownface I've come across in old tv. there's no excusing it #and it looks‚ frankly‚ ridiculous as well as deeply troubling. a very disappointing element of an otherwise entertaining episode #paul darrow also turns up and is also playing a native of Istanbul but happily does not appear to be under heavy makeup.. nor do much of #the guest cast‚ and certainly nobody near Wyngarde's level of makeup. which makes one wonder what happened and why on earth

[j-august]

As a boy, [Aldrich] Ames read Leslie Charteris's thrillers featuring Simon Templar, 'the Saint', and imagined himself as a 'dashing, debonair British adventurers'. He wore a trench coat to look like a spy, and practised magic tricks. He liked fooling people.

Ben Macintyre, The Spy and the Traitor

#quote #quotation #Ben Macintyre #The Spy and the Traitor #Aldrich Ames #Leslie Charteris #The Saint #things notorious American traitors and I have in common: Leslie Charteris #dashing #debonair #spy #spying #fooling #magic tricks #okay none of the rest of this though

[notesonfilm1]

LADY ON A TRAIN ( Charles David, 1945)

View On WordPress

#4.50 from Paddington #Dan Duryea #Deanna Durbin #Edward Everett Horton #Lady on A Train #Leslie Charteris #Ralph Bellamy

[zippocreed501]

The Saint theme by Edwin Astley

#the saint #60's tv #leslie charteris #author extraordinaire #roger moore #Youtube