Labels: 2007, Dick Tracy, Film, George Sanders, Hugh Sinclair, Louis Hayward, RKO, TCM

Labels: 2007, George Sanders, Ian Dickerson, Ian Ogilvy, Leslie Charteris, Louis Hayward, Roger Moore, Vincent Price

This collection of whodunits follows Van Dine’s rules in highly suspenseful and entertaining fashion. Our Detective All-Stars include Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep (1946) — both given definitive readings by Humphrey Bogart in his best wry, burned-out style. We present four films each devoted to The Lone Wolf (all TCM premieres), Sherlock Holmes, Dick Tracy, Nancy Drew, The Saint and The Falcon — plus the TCM debut of no less than eight Boston Blackie mysteries! Among our Police Detectives are Lt. Vincent Hanna, played by Al Pacino in Heat (TCM premiere, 1995), which also stars Robert De Niro as his nemesis, a master thief who calls himself “double the worst trouble you’ve ever seen.” Perhaps the most famous of all Society Sleuths are Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) in The Thin Man (1934), which took its title not from Powell’s character but from that of Edward Ellis, who plays the murder victim.

Amateur Detectives include the elderly British spinster Miss Jane Marple, played for the first time by the indomitably droll Margaret Rutherford in Murder She Said (1961). The actress has become so closely associated with the role that it is sometimes forgotten that the Miss Marple of the Agatha Christie novels is quite a different character — far less funny and eccentric than the jut-jawed Rutherford.

Labels: 2007, Gentleman Thief, George Sanders, TCM

Glenn Hauman of ComicMix has news about a new TNT series in development:

The Saint? Again?

Simon Templar debuted in 1928 and Leslie Charteris continued writing about him until1960 when he began using ghosts to help him. Movies, TV, comic books, radio, pulps, slicks over and over in various countries...This is one durable dude.

My favorite Charteris story dates back to when George Sanders was playing the Saint at the RKO B-movie unit. Charteris bombarded the suits with letters insisting that they try getting Cary Grant for the part. Grant was by then an enormous international star...and he was going to do a series of B movie? Doubtful.

When Sanders left his younger and more vulnerable brother Tom took over. Fifteen years later Tom was aboard a bus taking him to a body pile where indigent alcoholics went to die. He didn't make it. He died en route.

The Saint may not be Tarzan or Superman or Sherlock Holmes...but he's certainly a creation who adapts well to each generation.

Read full story...

Labels: 2007, George Sanders, Leslie Charteris, Roger Moore, TNT, TV, William J. MacDonald

Labels: 2007, Felix Marten, Film, George Sanders, Hugh Sinclair, Ian Ogilvy, Jean Marais, Leslie Charteris, Louis Hayward, Roger Moore, Val Kilmer