#and perennial fave of mine George Pravda gets to be an utterly disinterested policeman

[mariocki]

The Saint: The Rhine Maiden (3.16, ITC, 1965)

"If I'm not back by ten, drive to the main police station in Baden Baden and ask for Inspector Glessen. Don't tell him I'm in trouble or that you think I need help."

"Why?"

"Because he'd be delighted."

"Well, what will I say?"

"Tell him I'm robbing the Schreiber Clinic, that'll bring him."

#the saint #the rhine maiden #1965 #itc #leslie charteris #brian degas #james hill #roger moore #nigel davenport #stephanie randall #victor beaumont #anthony booth #george pravda #adina mandlová #frederick schiller #ernst walder #ernest hare #totti truman taylor #idk it just feels a little by the numbers this one.. it's odd because it has a good cast. Davenport is always good value as a guest #and perennial fave of mine George Pravda gets to be an utterly disinterested policeman #but the plot all feels a bit.. formulaic. maybe I'm getting Saint burn out? is that a thing? i feel sure @thisbluespirit would say it is #the old criminal escape route was a popular topic for classic tv‚ both ITC and otherwise (The Avengers did it too). it's not even #particularly clever here; the presence of a dr made me think there'd be plastic surgery involved but actually it's just a rubber mask on a #random corpse. not very ingenious. also the dr is a former nazi which is a weird thing to throw into the mix but again not an isolated #thing (there's a (better) ep of The Champions that deals with p much the same criminal escape thing also with a nazi dr involved). this #makes a curious (and imo unwise) decision to make the nazi the one of the three villains with a little more of a sympathetic portrayal (and #again! the champions did that!). it's just weird. why make him a nazi if you're then going to make him slightly less evil than his buddies? #one could wonder at the political landscape in 1965 as german relations with the US and UK were solidifying and there was a push toward #moving beyond ww2 memories and looking to the future.. but then WHY make the character not just a nazi but a literal wanted nazi war #criminal?? it beggars belief tbh. a very strange move. i got distracted. bland episode‚ meh out of ten