Posts tagged The Saint

The semester is over, and I’m decompressing with Harry Harrison’s anarchically humorous sci-fi.  Fans of pulp literature may recognize Harrison as the ghostwriter of Vendetta for the Saint, the first which series originator Leslie Charteris did not write himself.

But here Harrison in on his own terms, with his own hero.  This is certainly not hardboiled, not by a long shot.   But it’s solidly entertaining pulp.  Harrison has a breezy, quick-witted style that makes Slippery Jim (a.k.a. The Stainless Steel Rat, a.k.a. James Bolivar DiGriz) a quickly endearing hero.

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Leslie Charteris’ florid pulp creation has been brought to life a number of times.  Roger Moore is one of the best remembered.  Indeed, Moore is arguably better as Simon Templar than as James Bond.  Vendetta for the Saint was initially two episodes of the Saint television show in which Moore starred.  The episodes, based on the novel of the same name, were spliced into a movie when was then released in cinemas.   The novel was ghostwritten by sci-fi novelist Harry Harrison, though Charteris edited Harrison’s manuscript significantly to put his own stamp on the final product.  The movie is a more or less straightforward adaptation of Harrison’s story.  The guest stars are not likely to impress anyone, nor are the action scenes. But the Vendetta for the Saint has Moore.  He exudes urbanity and devil-may-care wit.  His shortcomings as an action hero are unsatisfactory to modern eyes accustomed to Jason Bourne or Daniel Craig as Bond.  But if one does not like pulp escapism, one should not be watchingThe Saint (a fact that somehow eluded makers of the feature film starring Val Kilmer).  The Saint was always a foppish but roguish pulp hero.  With the possible exception of Vincent Price on the radio, no one has been better at portraying Simon Templar than Roger Moore.

Leslie Charteris’ florid pulp creation has been brought to life a number of times.  Roger Moore is one of the best remembered.  Indeed, Moore is arguably better as Simon Templar than as James Bond.  Vendetta for the Saint was initially two episodes of the Saint television show in which Moore starred.  The episodes, based on the novel of the same name, were spliced into a movie when was then released in cinemas.  

The novel was ghostwritten by sci-fi novelist Harry Harrison, though Charteris edited Harrison’s manuscript significantly to put his own stamp on the final product.  The movie is a more or less straightforward adaptation of Harrison’s story.  The guest stars are not likely to impress anyone, nor are the action scenes.

But the Vendetta for the Saint has Moore.  He exudes urbanity and devil-may-care wit.  His shortcomings as an action hero are unsatisfactory to modern eyes accustomed to Jason Bourne or Daniel Craig as Bond.  But if one does not like pulp escapism, one should not be watchingThe Saint (a fact that somehow eluded makers of the feature film starring Val Kilmer).  The Saint was always a foppish but roguish pulp hero.  With the possible exception of Vincent Price on the radio, no one has been better at portraying Simon Templar than Roger Moore.

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The 27th of May is so full of literary achievement, it ought to be a holiday.  Today is, most famously, the centennial of John Cheever.  While Cheever did not write crime fiction or noir, I’d like to think this blog supports great literature of all types.  Sometimes, I even read some of it.  If you’re a Mad Men fan, you will probably enjoy reading Cheever, one of the show’s influences.  But he also deserves to be read on his own terms.

I love short stories, and Cheever was a master of the form.  His 1978 anthology The Stories of John Cheever won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  I’ll be curling up with my copy and rereading some of my favorites from Cheever’s collection.  If you are unfamiliar with Cheever’s stories, I urge you to rectify this.  “The Enormous Radio” is one of his best.  

But this day is not without noirish significance.  The father (or grandfather, or godfather, or maybe uncle-in-law) of hardboiled crime fiction, Dashiell Hammett, was born on 27 May 1894.  I could rhapsodize over Hammett, but if you’re reading this, you probably know all about him.  If you don’t, go pick up The Maltese Falcon.  Or Red Harvest.  Or The Thin Man.  Or The Glass Key, or The Dain Curse, or anything by Hammett.

Pulp scribe Leslie Charteris was born on the auspicious 27th day of May.  Charteris had his centennial five years ago, but his birthday still deserves a mention.  Charteris invented The Saint and wrote a great many of his early adventures before turning the series over to other authors (who ghostwrote subsequent episodes so that all Simon Templar’s escapades bear Charteris’ name).  I don’t think Charteris is the literary equivalent of either Cheever or Hammett, but he’s damned fun to read.

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As you may have seen, the first picture from the impending James Bond movie Skyfall was released earlier in the week.  This isn’t noir, as far as I know.  The Bond franchise probably isn’t built for bleak noir à la James M. Cain or Cornell Woolrich.  But let’s not forget, noir is an appendage of hardboiled.  I would suggest that James Bond is another such offshoot. Put simply, Bond is a pulp hero.  Is the Bond of Fleming’s novels really all that different from Mike Hammer?  The anti-communism, the womanizing, the brutality.  Now James Bond is a very Tory pulp hero, certainly.  But compare him to another Tory pulp hero—Leslie Charteris’ The Saint—and it is perfectly obvious that Bond is hardboiled through and through.  The last line of Casino Royale?  “The bitch is dead.” The movies have sometimes ranged far afield, though it’s hard to argue that even Octopussy was that much more ridiculous than Armand Assante’s turn as Mike Hammer I, the Jury.  The first couple films show Bond as a sort of international detective.  He might have more panache than Marlowe, but Marlowe was Aristotle compared to earlier pulp detectives. What say you?  How would you classify Fleming’s novels?  Or the continuation novels?

As you may have seen, the first picture from the impending James Bond movie Skyfall was released earlier in the week.  This isn’t noir, as far as I know.  The Bond franchise probably isn’t built for bleak noir à la James M. Cain or Cornell Woolrich.  But let’s not forget, noir is an appendage of hardboiled.  I would suggest that James Bond is another such offshoot.

Put simply, Bond is a pulp hero.  Is the Bond of Fleming’s novels really all that different from Mike Hammer?  The anti-communism, the womanizing, the brutality.  Now James Bond is a very Tory pulp hero, certainly.  But compare him to another Tory pulp hero—Leslie Charteris’ The Saint—and it is perfectly obvious that Bond is hardboiled through and through.  The last line of Casino Royale?  “The bitch is dead.”

The movies have sometimes ranged far afield, though it’s hard to argue that even Octopussy was that much more ridiculous than Armand Assante’s turn as Mike Hammer I, the Jury.  The first couple films show Bond as a sort of international detective.  He might have more panache than Marlowe, but Marlowe was Aristotle compared to earlier pulp detectives.

What say you?  How would you classify Fleming’s novels?  Or the continuation novels?

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Granted, this isn’t noir.  Still, I see no reason to confine myself to one subgenre of crime fiction.  Charteris and his successors (sci-fi novelist Harry Harrison was the ghostwriter for this one) wrote with a distinctive, florid style.  But Simon Templar is just a pulp hero with purple prose. I like pulp art as much as the next guy, but this cover is completely inappropriate for the book it contains.  This book was published in 1964.  Because Harrison is borrowing Charteris’ literary style, it reads like it was written even before that.  But the styles depicted on the man and woman appearing on the cover appear to be from at least ten years after 1964.  Still, don’t let poorly drawn cover art keep you from The Saint’s adventures!

Granted, this isn’t noir.  Still, I see no reason to confine myself to one subgenre of crime fiction.  Charteris and his successors (sci-fi novelist Harry Harrison was the ghostwriter for this one) wrote with a distinctive, florid style.  But Simon Templar is just a pulp hero with purple prose.

I like pulp art as much as the next guy, but this cover is completely inappropriate for the book it contains.  This book was published in 1964.  Because Harrison is borrowing Charteris’ literary style, it reads like it was written even before that.  But the styles depicted on the man and woman appearing on the cover appear to be from at least ten years after 1964. 

Still, don’t let poorly drawn cover art keep you from The Saint’s adventures!

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It’s been a while since I posted some literature porn, so I thought I’d post these books that I found yesterday afternoon.  (I have no shortage of books for your viewing pleasure; I just have to take pictures of them so you can objectify their covers.)  I must say, the local library discards some excellent books.  But I’ve no objection; this allows me to accumulate them without having to return them to the library. Here I have Ruth Rendell’s From Doon With Death.  Rendell is often credited as an author of noirish psychological novels.  From Doon With Death, however is part of her procedural Inspector Wexford series of novels.  I’m not sure how noirish Wexford is.  And I’m not sure how Rendell is categorized as both noir and cozy mystery.  The terms are arbitrary, folks.  I’ll read it and find out.  But I’ll probably start with Rendell’s non-Wexford novel One Across, Two Down.  Vendetta for the Saint just ain’t noir, and that’s all there is to it.  But I like The Saint, so that’s that.  Leslie Charteris’ creation is certainly one an important part of twentieth century crime fiction.  What’s more, The Saint evolved from the same pulpy ancestors as Dashiell Hammett and subsequent hardboiled authors. It is no surprise that Vincent Price was playing Simon Templar (the beatific nickname derived from Templar’s initials) on the radio about the same time that Gerald Mohr was playing Philip Marlowe.  Leslie Charteris and subsequent authors writing under his name (this volume was ghostwritten by Harry Harrison, with significant editorial input from Charteris) created breezy, highbrow pulp.  “As the actress said to the bishop.” Despite my fondness for the Saint, the undisputed gem of this haul is Ross Macdonald’s The Far Side of the Dollar.  Lew Archer mysteries aren’t always easy to come by.  Whenever I see one, I pick it up.  I very much look forward to reading it, as I am currently re-examining my opinion of Macdonald.  Stay tuned, I’ll certainly have more to say about The Far Side of the Dollar once I read it.

It’s been a while since I posted some literature porn, so I thought I’d post these books that I found yesterday afternoon.  (I have no shortage of books for your viewing pleasure; I just have to take pictures of them so you can objectify their covers.)  I must say, the local library discards some excellent books.  But I’ve no objection; this allows me to accumulate them without having to return them to the library.

Here I have Ruth Rendell’s From Doon With Death.  Rendell is often credited as an author of noirish psychological novels.  From Doon With Death, however is part of her procedural Inspector Wexford series of novels.  I’m not sure how noirish Wexford is.  And I’m not sure how Rendell is categorized as both noir and cozy mystery.  The terms are arbitrary, folks.  I’ll read it and find out.  But I’ll probably start with Rendell’s non-Wexford novel One Across, Two Down. 

Vendetta for the Saint just ain’t noir, and that’s all there is to it.  But I like The Saint, so that’s that.  Leslie Charteris’ creation is certainly one an important part of twentieth century crime fiction.  What’s more, The Saint evolved from the same pulpy ancestors as Dashiell Hammett and subsequent hardboiled authors. It is no surprise that Vincent Price was playing Simon Templar (the beatific nickname derived from Templar’s initials) on the radio about the same time that Gerald Mohr was playing Philip Marlowe.  Leslie Charteris and subsequent authors writing under his name (this volume was ghostwritten by Harry Harrison, with significant editorial input from Charteris) created breezy, highbrow pulp.  “As the actress said to the bishop.”

Despite my fondness for the Saint, the undisputed gem of this haul is Ross Macdonald’s The Far Side of the Dollar.  Lew Archer mysteries aren’t always easy to come by.  Whenever I see one, I pick it up.  I very much look forward to reading it, as I am currently re-examining my opinion of Macdonald.  Stay tuned, I’ll certainly have more to say about The Far Side of the Dollar once I read it.

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