 The Saintly Bible
A Guide to the Immortal Works of Leslie Charteris and his Saint Saga
I have been trying to make a picture of a man. Changing,
yes. Developing, I hope. Fantastic, improbable-perhaps. Quite worthless,
quite irritating, if you feel that way. Or a slightly cockeyed ideal, if
you feel differently. It doesn't matter so much, so long as you feel that
you would recognise him if you met him tomorrow.
--Leslie Charteris, 1939
The famous logo of the Saint; it has an
almost magical nostalgia about it, bringing different emotions and responses
from anyone who sees it. Most remember watching Roger Moore in the 1960s
driving his white Volvo P1800 across our television sets, while others recall George Sanders
in a dusty 1940s theater catering to the RKO "B" crowd. Old-time radio fans
can still hear the famous voice of Vincent Price broadcasting the adventures of The Saint over the
airwaves on CBS and NBC, and yet a younger generation might see a vision of Ian Ogilvy
wearing those 1970s fashions we love to hate, starring in The Return of the Saint. A few hearty fans might
even conjure up Simon Dutton in his role as the famous Simon Templar in
the 1980s. The 1990's featured a big budget Paramount film starring Val Kilmer in many disguises driving around a
new Volvo C70 sports coupe.
The more literary minded of us recall a series of books dating
back to the 1920s that was still being added to in the 1980s. Readers of
pulp magazines have pleasant memories of The Saint Mystery Magazine, as
well as other stories appearing in such magazines as Black Mask, Double
Detective and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The Saint also ventured into the comics
section of our newspapers, battling alongside Dick Tracy and the other Sunday heroes. The Saint even
had his own series of bubblegum cards, and with the series current under option in the new millennium,
one thing remains unchanged:
Watch for the sign of The Saint, he will be back.
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