The Fiction Makers: Part 1

Before I looked it up (watching it for the first time tonight), I thought Sylvia Sims was Galaxy Rose, and Justine Lord was Amos Klein. Why can't I tell these two women a part? Do they look that much like each other? I know they've both been in several other episodes, maybe they're just blurring together... 🤔😉😊

I love it when the Saint ventures into "Avengers" territory, and that's never more true than with "The Fiction Makers" (not a Charteris story).

Sylvia Sims (who is often in special Saint episodes), no longer quite the petite lovely from "Ice Cold on Alex but quite a good actress with a flair for comedy, plays an Ian Fleming-type writer pen-named Amos Klein. Simon Templar is mistaken for her and kidnapped, though she goes along as his "secretary."

They are held captive by a man who has studied her books and has set up his villain's hide-out precisely as delineated in them. The bad guys are staging a raid on a place with lots of anti-theft equipment and they want Simon (Amos) to WRITE their way in and out of the place.

A good if wacky show, with lots of laughs. And not only featuring Syms but the delectable Justine Lord, (THE PRISONER: "The Girl Who was Death") in her stereotypical sexpot role. And she steals the show. She's no dummy.

The great fallacy the leading bad guy, Warlock, makes is that crime, detective or adventure writers write forward and figure out the crimes as they go along. In fact, with rare exceptions, they start at the end, set up the crimes and adventures and then figure out how to get there. No writer worth her salt would walk her characters into a problem without knowing how to get out beforehand.

Still, most people don't have this insight into the writers' life and so they will buy it. Overall, this two-parter is one of my favorite episodes.

Sylvia Sims is funny and sexy as "Amos Klein", a writer of Alistair Maclean-type thrillers. Simon is hired as her bodyguard, but then they get kidnapped by a gang led by a crazy megalomaniac. So what else is new? There's a twist - this megalomaniac has recreated the world of Klein's books, and he and his gang plan to invade a Fort Knox type storage facility and take off with the bullion, jewels etc. Another twist: they think Simon is Klein and Sylvia is his secretary. There's another lissom young girl (in a lace catsuit) playing Klein's character "Galaxy Rose". Simon (as Klein) is ordered to come up with a way of lifting the loot and avoiding the infrared rays etc etc (invented by that genius Leon Theremin in real life). He has to keep brainstorming with his secretary of course, but they can't think of a scheme. Instead they escape, running across country chased by hounds, mistaken for lunatics and turned over to the kindly "doctors" once more. Klein thinks up a way of getting past the lasers etc, and Simon has to take part in the raid. The episode now becomes a lengthy take-off of Topkapi and endless Bond movies. This is where I fell asleep, then fast-forwarded. It all ends happily. Roger and Sylvia make a lovely couple and RM uses his genuine comedy skills which were much more than a raised eyebrow and a double entendre.