The Saint (1997) | Presenting Hitchcock Podcast

Gooooood evening. In this month’s episode of Presenting Hitchcock, Cory and Aaron will never let you know who they truly are as they discuss The Saint.

Written by: 

Screenplay by: Jonathan Hensleigh and Wesley Strick

Story by: Jonathan Hensleigh

Based on characters created by Leslie Charteris

Starring: Val Kilmer, Elisabeth Shue, Rade Serbedzija, Valeriy Nikolaev, Henry Goodman, Alun Armstrong, and Michael Byrne

Directed by: Phillip Noyce

Trailer:

Our Favourite Trivia:

Hitchcock comparisons:

• The 39 Steps
• Sabotage
• Foreign Correspondent
• Notorious
• Topaz

First big-screen Saint movie since the 1950s. Plans for a movie date back to the 1980s, when Pierce Brosnan was reported to be a leading contender for the Templar role, and was to be produced by Sir Roger Moore. This project never materialized.

Paramount Pictures previously attempted to make this movie with Robert Evans as producer, Steven Zaillian as writer, and Sydney Pollack as director. Ralph Fiennes was offered $1 million for the lead, but eventually passed. 

Director Phillip Noyce originally hoped to have Mel Gibson play the lead. Gibson was initially interested, but then decided that he had spent too long away from home making Braveheart (1995). Sir Kenneth Branagh, George Clooney, Kevin Costner, Johnny Depp, Daniel Day-Lewis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christian Slater and Hugh Grant turned down the role of Simon Templar.

This movie uses the classic “Saint theme” that, though often thought of as starting with the 1960s television show, actually began in the 1930s and 1940s R.K.O. Saint movies, and appeared in the radio show with Vincent Price. This theme tune, having appeared in numerous post 1960s television adaptations of the Saint, serves as one of the most frequent and longest lasting theme tunes of a media franchise.

The saint pin that Dr. Emma Russell gives Simon Templar, is a re-creation of the original television series’ logo.

A Volvo P1800 can be seen parked directly outside Simon’s apartment building in London. This was the type of car driven by Simon in The Saint (1962). The car driven by Simon in this film is a Volvo C70.

Simon uses a Nokia 9000 Communicator cell phone. This phone was very cutting-edge when it was introduced in 1996, as it functioned as both a handheld phone and a clamshell pocket computer, complete with a mini-QWERTY keyboard, and several built-in apps. It was not used as paid advertisement, but was rather seen by Phillip Noyce when a technician was using it, and he decided to include it in the film.

The digital camera used in the movie is a very rare NEC PC-DC401. The camera, as seen in the movie, could encode and decode images files in real life.

The poetry written by Simon Templar’s long-haired artist character, Thomas Moore, was actually written by Val Kilmer.

The voice of the radio announcer at the end of this movie was Sir Roger Moore, who played The Saint (1962) on British television. The announcer mentions the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), as one of the charities that have been given major donations, a charity Moore was heavily involved with.

In the original version of this movie, Dr. Russell collapses while giving a lecture and dies in The Saint’s arms. The Saint sees Tretiak, Jr. stabbing her in the leg with the tip of his cane, and humiliates his father as a form of revenge, causing the final battle to break out. Phillip Noyce hopes one day to be able to restore the original version for a Director’s Cut.On June 17, 2016, it was announced that Paramount Pictures was planning a reboot of the film, with Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Robert Evans serving as producers. Dexter Fletcher was announced as the film’s director in February 2020, after previously working with the studio on Rocketman, with Seth Grahame-Smith writing the screenplay. In July 2021, Regé-Jean Page was cast in the film and would also serve as executive producer, with Kwame Kwei-Armah now writing the screenplay. In November 2023 it was reported that Doug Liman was now directing the film from a script by Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani.

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