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''The Saint'' is an ITC mystery spy thriller television series that aired in the UK on ITV between 1962 and 1969. It was based on the literary character Simon Templar created by Leslie Charteris in the 1920s〔(【引用サイトリンク】The New York Times">url=http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/18/obituaries/leslie-charteris-dies-mystery-writer-was-85.html )〕 and featured in many novels over the years.〔 He was played by Roger Moore. Simon Templar was essentially a Robin Hood who stole from criminals, but kept the money. His nemesis was Chief Inspector Claude Teal who considered Templar a common criminal no matter whom he stole from.〔 As a result of the strong performance in the US of the first two black-and-white series in first-run syndication, NBC picked up the show as a summer replacement in its evening schedule in 1966. The programme therefore ended its run with both trans-Atlantic prime time scheduling and colour episodes. It also proved popular beyond the UK and US, eventually airing in over 60 countries, and made a profit in excess of £350m for ITC.〔(Television Haven overview of ''The Saint'' )〕〔(''Time'' magazine article from 18 April 1969 detailing the premiere of the fifth series of ''The Saint'' )〕〔(The Guardian Robert S Baker obituary, paragraph 3 )〕 With almost 120 episodes, the programme is exceeded only by ''The Avengers'' as the most productive show of its genre produced in the UK. As with ''The Avengers'', the colour episodes were originally broadcast in the UK in black and white, predating the advent of colour transmissions on ITV. ==Series overview== Roger Moore had earlier tried to buy the production rights to the ''Saint'' books himself and was delighted to be able to play the part. Moore eventually became co-owner of the show with Robert S. Baker when the show moved to colour and the production credit became Bamore Productions. Most of the wardrobe Moore wore in the series was his own. He was reportedly offered the role of 007 at least twice during the run of the series, but had to turn it down both times owing to his television commitments. In one early episode of the series, another character actually mistakes Templar for Bond. Although Moore had a few recurring co-stars, most notably Ivor Dean, who took over the role of Templar's nemesis/reluctant ally, Inspector Teal, he was the only actor to feature for the entire run of the show. This was in keeping with the later format of the Charteris novels, wherein the Saint usually worked alone. In early books, however, Templar had a team of compatriots, as well as a regular girlfriend, but these characters do not appear in the programme. Inspector Teal had been previously played by Norman Pitt and Wensley Pithey. From the episode "Iris" (7 November 1963), Ivor Dean took over. He had previously starred as a bad guy in the series, in the "Hollywood" episode. ''The Saint'' began as a straightforward mystery series, but over the years adopted more secret agent- and fantasy-style plots. It also made a well-publicised switch from black-and-white to colour production midway through its run. The early episodes are distinguished by Moore breaking the fourth wall and speaking to the audience in character at the start of every episode. With the switch to colour, this was replaced by simple narration. Invariably, the pre-credits sequence ended with someone referring to the Saint as "the famous Simon Templar", at which point an animated halo appeared above Templar's head as the actor usually looked at the camera or directly at the halo. Some episodes such as "Iris" broke away from this formula and had Templar address the audience for the entire pre-credits sequence, setting up the story that followed. Many episodes were based upon Charteris's stories, although a higher percentage of original scripts were used as the series progressed ("Queen's Ransom" was both the first colour episode and the first episode not to be based on a Charteris work). The novel ''Vendetta for the Saint'', credited to Charteris but written by Harry Harrison, was one of the last ''Saint'' stories to be adapted. Some of the later scripts were novelised and published as part of the ongoing series of ''The Saint'' novels, such as ''The Fiction Makers'' and ''The People Importers''. The first of these books, which gave cover credit to Charteris, but were actually written by others, was ''The Saint on TV'', and the series of novelisations continued for several years after the television programme had ended. A notable difference between ''The Saint'' and its contemporary, ''The Avengers'', is that whereas the first three series of that program (broadcast between 1961 and 1964) were videotaped, with minimal location shooting, ''The Saint'' was shot on film in its entirety, allowing higher production values, more location filming, and it also allowed early seasons to be syndicated abroad. The black-and-white series were first syndicated in the US by NBC affiliate stations in 1967 and 1968, and 32 of the 47 colour episodes were broadcast by NBC from 1968 to 1969, and has since played in syndication in the US for many years after (the '70s sequel ''Return of the Saint'' aired to high ratings on CBS in 1979-80). Most series are available on DVD in North America. A pair of two-part episodes from series 6, "Vendetta for the Saint" and "The Fiction Makers", were made into feature films and distributed to theatres in Europe, and often show up on late-night television in America. They are also available on DVD. In 1978, the series was revived as ''Return of the Saint'', starring Ian Ogilvy as Templar. There were two further attempts to revive the Saint on TV; in 1987, a 46-minute US TV pilot was made "The Saint in Manhattan" starring Australian actor Andrew Clarke, and in 1989, London Weekend Television in the UK made a series of six film-length episodes starring Simon Dutton. Roger Moore never played the role again after 1969, though he can be heard speaking on a car radio during the 1997 film ''The Saint'', starring Val Kilmer as Templar. The final film bore absolutely no similarity to the books or either TV series (and indeed carried no credit for Leslie Charteris). With that in mind, it was strange that the producers bought the rights to use the character's name from Robert S. Baker, who held the rights and had developed and produced both ''The Saint'' and ''Return of the Saint''. In the UK, ITV4 is currently broadcasting colour episodes. In the US, FamilyNet and RTV are airing both the black-and-white and colour episodes. Me-TV is now also broadcasting the series, as of January 2013. In March 2015 the CBS-owned Decades digital cable network aired a "Series Binge" marathon of the show as part of "Countdown to Decades", a soft-launch prelude to the network's official launch in May 2015. The marathon featured every episode of the series aired back to back. The marathon began March 30th at 5 pm Eastern Time and ended April 3rd at 11pm. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Saint (TV series)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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