I've now seen the first three episodes of the Saint, and I'm really enjoying it - but I have some thoughts. For instance, the series hasn't passed the Bechdel Test yet. There are quite a few women, with decent parts, but they're all in separate scenes so never interact with each other. And they're all blonde (apart from one Italian girl and an old lady).
On the plus side, Warren Mitchell guest stars as a delightful Italian taxi driver (and he and the Saint are speaking real Italian). Warren Mitchell seems to have been one of those actors often called upon to play dodgy foreigners - he was also a Russian spy in the Avengers.
I think they may actually have gone to Rome for some of the establishing shots of the Saint walking around, before returning to the studio - or if not, they made it look convincing.
In episode 3 David Kossoff is a bomb maker for a corrupt US Union boss. There's even a speech at the end where the Saint praises honest union bosses. This is also the episode that introduces Hoppy, beside whom two short planks would look intelligent.
So far, too, it has been established that the Saint speaks Italian and understands enough Latin to send a coded message to a Latin professor (now State Governor), and has a wide knowledge of antiques - and that the gun he is licenced to carry in the US, is a Beretta .32.
The series also made use of several American actors (the chap at the US Embassy in Rome sounded very like Phones from Stingray, too). I'm sure this was to appeal to the American TV market.
Next up, the Saint is in Paris dealing with a plot that dates back to the French Resistance....
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