A Tale of Two Saints

'The Man in the Beige Suit': Ian Ogilvy's Simon Templar

For the past few years, I have been slowly working my way through Roger Moore’s tenure as Simon Templar – all 118 episodes. It’s not the greatest TV series ever made, but it’s consistently entertaining. And whatever one thinks of Roger Moore as an actor (lazy reviewers always refer to the eyebrows), he was perfectly cast. I never quite bought into the idea of him as James Bond, but Simon Templar is the role he was born to play.

By way of complete contrast, and by accident rather than intent, I found myself this week watching an episode of the short lived 1978 revival Return of the Saint. This was a series whose arrival in September 1978 I welcomed. Nobody seemed to be making those old school adventure series any more, and the earlier ITC titles had ended their afterlife in repeat broadcasts. I stuck with Return... through twenty-four episodes, but I was never quite convinced. My friends at school were less equivocal, denouncing it as rubbish when it came up for discussion in the playground. With hindsight, I have to concede they were probably right. Watching a random episode in the middle of my Roger Moore repeat run really brought home the differences between the two eras of Simon Templar. Roger Moore’s Saint was fun, bantering, a believable and fully realised character, eyebrows and all. He had the same sparring relationship with Scotland Yard’s dogged Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal that had provided so many comic moments in the books, and despite the contemporary setting, he was still recognisable for Leslie Charteris’ iconic creation. But what can we say of Simon Templar circa 1978?

Ian Ogilvy is a fine actor. His comic turn in the pilot episode of Ripping Yarns was splendid. So why couldn’t be have brought some of that ‘school bully’ brilliance to Return of the Saint? Where Roger Moore constantly lit up the screen, Ogilvy’s Saint never really catches fire. The Simon Templar of 1978 has a personality as beige as his wardrobe. Indeed, beige seems to have infused the whole production. Even the colour has a hint of oatmeal about it. Was it the lighting? Were they using different negative stock? Whatever had happened, I’ve noticed it in other productions of this era. They look somehow flat. The ‘classic colour’ ITC productions have a sharpness, clarity and brilliance that’s entirely lacking from Return of the Saint. But there’s more to this than just picture quality.

On paper, Return of the Saint had plenty going for it: Ian Ogilvy beneath the halo and original Saint executive producer Robert S Baker running the show – to say nothing of the imprimatur of ITC. And where the Roger Moore episodes had seldom ventured more than a few miles from the production base in search of, ahem, exotic locations, Return... actually decamped to Europe. Italian state TV network RAI's co-funding of the series must have been a factor here. But for all this, I’d still take all 118 Roger Moore episodes in preference to one outing with Ian Ogilvy. What went wrong? Well, the scripts for a kickoff. The episode I chanced to see, The Arrangement, shamelessly pinched its plot from Strangers on a Train. It had a somewhat darker tone than others in the series, with references to heroin, and a scene set in Soho that sees Simon Templar visiting the Marquee club – the real venue, not a studio set (punk band The Saints are on stage: how tediously obvious!) Then there’s the acting. Carloyn Seymour takes care of scenery-chewing, turning in a raving bonkers performance as the bored wife who sets up the ‘arrangement’ to swap murders with a reluctant friend. Michael Medwin blots his copybook with a turn as a drunken husband that ticks every box in the Michael Caine manual of ‘how not to act drunk’. It’s painful to watch.

Then there’s the Saint himself. I really can’t imagine what the producers were thinking here: the Simon Templar of the Saint books was variously described as a ‘buccaneer’ or a ‘modern day Robin Hood’ who operated at the periphery of law and order and often beyond. For the original TV series, his act had to be cleaned up somewhat, and Templar was never seen to commit a crime other than as a means to catch the villain of the week. Even so, Inspector Teal and his many counterparts always treated him with caution, and were aware of his reputation. This was a neat way of keeping the character true to his origins without depicting him as an out and out lawbreaker. 

Ian Ogilvy’s Saint, by complete contrast, is squeaky clean. He owns a mews house in London, and jaunts around the world seemingly doing nothing save for becoming embroiled in mysteries. There’s no sense of his being roguish, like Moore, or an opportunist out to earn a bit of money wherever he can. To this Saint, being Simon Templar is like a profession. He’s the chartered accountant of playboy adventurers, a bit boring and bland. He gets angry at times. He weilds a firearm in a manner reminiscent of Avon in Blakes Seven, posing with gun in hand and his other arm outstretched like a pop singer, as if he’s waiting to have his photo taken.

Ian Ogilvy’s performance comes across like a muted imitation of Cary Grant. There are attempts at bantering humour, but they never quite convince, thanks to some diabolical lines from the scriptwriters. Quite a lot of the time, he looks, well, what’s the word? Constipated. This Saint does a good line in self-righteous indignation, a characteristic entirely absent from Roger Moore’s portrayal. His wardrobe doesn’t help, either. It’s very Man at C&A: lots of blazers with double rows of gold buttons, flared trousers and those bloody beige suits. 

In fact, the only aspects of the series that resemble the 1960s Saint are the names of Bob Baker and Leslie Charteris on the credits, the stickman, his car number plate ST1, and the name Simon Templar. This is a safe, polished but too perfect late 70s take on a classic character and it just won’t do. It’s a bit late for criticism now, of course, and at the time, aged 17, I could find no fault with it (until the episode where he utters a line about British Intelligence resembling a boiled potato). It’s telling, though, that I never sought it out again. Years later, I designed the sleeve for Network’s DVD release, but I’d have to go and search my shelves to see if I actually own a copy. If I do, I’ve never taken it down to watch a single episode. It is, in a word, ‘meh’.

If we can believe Wikipedia, the series was well received in Britain and Europe, but even in 1978 it sat awkwardly in the contemporary landscape of film and television. It wasn’t hard hitting like The Sweeney or The Professionals, but neither was it as tongue-in-cheek as The New Avengers or James Bond. It would prove to be ITC’s last endeavour in the arena of television production, as Lew Grade’s sights were by this time set elsewhere: specifically, at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Was it simply the case that the day of the ‘famous international playboy’ was over? But there’s something else missing from Return of the Saint, and I think it’s a key difference. In the Roger Moore series, Simon Templar is a world famous character, recognised wherever he goes. Ian Ogilvy’s Saint, by contrast, has to introduce himself. ‘I’m Simon Templar’ he tells a character in the episode I saw. I bet Roger Moore never had to say that.

Back in the 70s, I made up some stupid lyrics to fit the series’ theme music: ‘Its the Return of the Saint/ Yes it is/ No it ain’t.’ I think that just about sums it up.