[Wonka] Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it.[/Wonka]
In the Val Kilmer movie he was depicted as a thief for hire, in it only for the money. Also he had a very moody personality.
While it strayed toward the end of its run, most of the early plots in the Roger Moore series were adapted directly from the books. He went after crooks for his own amusement, and antagonized the police (especially Inspector Teal) who tried and failed to catch him in the act. Roger Moore captured Simon’s Teal-baiting personality nearly perfectly. The only major element from the books that I don’t recall seeing in the series was the fact that he gave most of his ill-gotten gains back to the victims or to charity, keeping only 10% for “expenses”.
In the books he was thief who stole from other criminals. And the really bad guys he would murder, but only after robbing them. And he was definitely in it for the money. The whole point of The Saint is that he used highly illegal methods against the bad guys.
The Roger Moore series almost totally removed that aspect. He barely broke the law at all.
The Val Kilmer version, for all it’s flaws, at least made him a lawbreaker. And while he started as someone who would steal to order, by the end of the film he would only go against bad guys
Only very loosely. Most of them have major plot points removed. Clever twists in the tale are gone. Vital plot points where The Saint breaks the law are eliminated. Usually this makes the TV version pointless.
That didn’t even make sense in the TV version. In the books, Teal wanted to catch The Saint for his criminal acts. In the TV show, he used mostly legal methods to help the police get evidence for lawful punishment of the crooks. Teal on TV had no reason to be antagonised by him.
The books were inconsistent as to how much he gave away and how much he kept. In the earliest he kept 10% and gave 90% to charity. In later books it seemed like he kept most for himself, though he did found at least two legitimate charities financed by crooks’ money.
In the TV series I never saw any suggestion that he took a single penny. The crooks had helpfully kept records of how much they had taken from each of their victims, allowing the return of their property.
It would be post-modern, and wink-wink broadly as it pushed every S&M/bondage trope ever made while kicking Bob Crane’s corpse with a steel-toed jackboot.
And a radio program and series of movies before it was a TV show. Every interepretation has been done in a different style. Interestingly, Ian Fleming thought Roger Moore would do a good film version of James Bond based on his portrayal of the Saint. And Patrick Magoohan(?) was originally considered for the Saint in the TV show. Like Bond, the Saint was a malleable character.
