martin benson

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Simon’s gone to Paris in order to spend a little time with the attractive Juliette (Yoland Turner). But this pleasant sojourn is cut short after Juliette’s brother, Andre (Alex Scott), is accused of murdering his business partner, Jean Bougrenet (John Bailey). Unbeknown to Andre, Jean was a member of an Algerian rebel organisation and since he recently defrauded Andre out of five hundred thousand francs, Andre had a clear motive for murder.

Attempting to clear Andre’s name, the Saint finds himself tangling with the implacable Major Quintana (Martin Benson) as well as Vladek Urivetsky (Hamilton Dyce), known as the Master Forger of Europe …..

The pre-credits sequence shows Simon relaxing at a street café. Everything is calm and peaceful, at least until the police turn up and drag a seemingly inoffensive man into the back of their police car. You might expect that this will have some bearing on the plot, but no – the man simply exists in order for Simon to tell the viewers that whilst Paris looks calm on the surface, revolutionary intrigue is bubbling away in the most unlikely quarters. It’s a slightly clumsy way of signalling what the thrust of the story will be, but no matter it’s only a passing irritation.

John Bailey was one of those actors who suffered beautifully (he had a wonderfully expressive face which could express a world of pain). He’s therefore perfect as the twitchy Jean, a man on the run from the imposing Major Quintana. Jean works for Quintana, but Quintana has come to distrust him (easy to see why, since Jean radiates unease and guilt). It’s therefore no surprise that Jean doesn’t last terribly long – he’s throttled to death within the first twenty minutes.

If the opening half of the story is rather dour and humourless – it’s mainly comprised of a number of grim looking men looking grimly at each other – then the arrival of Mère Lafond (Hazel Hughes) helps to lighten matters somewhat. Hughes – an experienced actress with a career which dated back to 1938 – is great fun as the fiery Madame Lafond. She’s a woman who operates on the shadier side of the law and expresses disbelief that the Saint may now be aligned with the godly! Hughes’ appearance is only brief but it helps to provide the episode with a much needed injection of levity.

Yolande Turner, in the first of her two Saint appearances, manages a decent French accent as the alluring Juliette. It’s not the greatest of parts, but she does her best. Robert Cawdron is given some decent comic material as the long-suffering Sergeant Ludic. Tasked with the job of staying by the Saint’s side at all times, it’s no surprise that Simon delights in leading him a merry dance.

At one point, Ludic is dragged along to a fancy dress party. He remains in plain clothes whilst Simon enters into the spirt of things by dressing as a clown (some twenty years before he did so again in Octopussy). It’s difficult not to love the groovy music and general revelries, although it won’t surprise you to learn that Simon organised this treat as something of a diversion ….

Part of the problem with The Work of Art is that the Algerian question isn’t really examined in much detail (we therefore never really know exactly what Major Quintana is fighting for). Urivetsky – although he barely features – at least is given a clear motivation. Unlike Quintana he’s not interested in politics – money is his only goal.

Roger Moore gets the opportunity to demonstrate yet again that the Saint is very handy in a fistfight, whilst his trademark calm under fire is also in evidence. It’s a pity that Simon doesn’t meet Quintana and Urivestsky until the last ten minutes or so, as when he does the story starts to pick up a little impetus.

Adapted from Charteris’ 1937 novella The Spanish War, Harry Junkin’s teleplay retooled the original quite considerably – changing many of the names and relocating the action from London to Paris. The Work of Art is solid enough, but isn’t terribly engaging and so only rates two and a half halos out of five.

Watch for the sign of the Saint, he will return …..

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Brady is approached by Colonel Warren (Douglas Wilmer) of Military Intelligence as one of their top agents, Jack Howard (Howard Pays), is being held prisoner in a Middle Eastern country. Howard, badly injured after an abortive escape attempt, is being guarded in a high security hospital and only the Invisible Man – along with the alluring local assistance of Yolanda (Adrienne Corri) – has any chance of freeing him ….

Fictitious Middle Eastern countries, forever teetering on the edge of instability, would be a staple of ITC adventure series during the next decade or so and Crisis in the Desert is an early example of this genre. Naturally, foreign location filming was beyond the series’ budget, so instead we have a reasonably dressed backlot (which doesn’t look too shabby, it must be said).

Ethnic actors would also tend to be in short supply whenever an ITC series headed abroad, so it’s no surprise to see British performers in all the main roles. The eagle-eyed will spot Derren Nesbitt in the background, but the bulk of the action is divided between Corri as Yolanda, Eric Pohlmann as Yolanda’s associate Hassan and Martin Benson as the villainous Colonel Hassan.

These three, along with Wilmer, make Crisis in the Desert a very enjoyable watch. Wilmer oozes charm as he persuades Brady (rather easily it must be said) to undertake a dangerous mission in the Middle East. It’s interesting that Warren reacts with horror when Brady tells him he thinks he’s close to reversing his invisibility – it’s obvious that Warren needs an invisible man to rescue Howard, but it’s odd that he doesn’t seem to have considered the possibility that once Brady has perfected his formula it could be duplicated. Creating a whole army of invisible agents would have obvious benefits. Given this, it seems a little foolhardy to risk Brady’s life (and the knowledge that only he has) on this jaunt abroad.

Corri had already racked up an impressive list of credits before appearing here as the glamourous freedom-fighter Yolanda. She looks very nice in a nurse’s uniform as well. Pohlmann has less to do, only react to Yolanda, but he’s effective enough. Benson is great fun as the sadistic Hassan – he opens the story by slapping Howard about and later suggests to an unfortunate surgeon (played by Derek Sydney) that he performs a little brain operation on Howard in order to make him more pliant.

Several actors black up – most notably Peter Sallis as Nesib, the ambulance driver. This probably isn’t a performance that’s going to be at the top of his cv, but for a working actor of this era playing the most unlikely nationalities was an occupational hazard (Sallis would later appear as an equally unconvincing Chinaman in an episode of Sergeant Cork).

The main problem with Crisis in the Desert is that there’s no real need for Brady to be there at all, as although he sneaks around the hospital in his invisible state, Nurse Yolanda is in plain sight all the time. As we’ll see, this proves to be something of a problem for the writers – often the gimmick of having an invisible man tends to be sidelined as Brady is shoehorned into plots that don’t require his invisibility skills to be utilised.