Thursday, June 25, 2020

Thursday Movie Picks #311: Book to TV adaptations (TV edition)






This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. We're up to the last Thursday of the month, which once again means that it's time for another TV themed edition. In fact, the "Book to TV adaption" theme has been done before, because I know I picked The Love Boat for that one, it being based on a book by former cruise director Jeraldine Saunders. So this time I had to think of three shows I didn't use, and came up with a theme-within-a-theme:



Sherlock Holmes (1954-1955). Based on Arthur Conan Doyle's detective, this one was produced in France by American abroad Sheldon Leonard using British actors (Ronald Howard plays Holmes), although Leonard was producing this for syndication in America. I first saw it on late night TV, I think on the local PBS channel



The Saint (1962-1969). Based on the short stories by Leslie Charteris, the show stars Roger Moore as Simon Templar, who is a sort of detective/spy who helps people the authorities can't or won't help; technically what he's doing is illegal so he's got a police inspector on his case. This one was also syndicated in the US and became popular on both sides of the Atlantic.



The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (1977-1979). Mysteries based on the stories of "Carolyn Keene" (Nancy Drew) and "Edward Dixon" (Hardy Boys), although both of those are pseudonyms for a bunch of authors. Juvenile detectives the Hardys (Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy) and Nancy Drew (Pamela Sue Martin) team up more or less to sove the cases, although Drew was dropped after the second season.

2 comments:

Brittani Burnham said...

I haven't seen any of your picks this week, but I did watch the modern Sherlock series, which I enjoyed for the most part.

Birgit said...

Sherlock...Inspired choice especially going with a version from the 50s. I love The Saint and would watch it whenever it was on TV which was rare. I also watched the Hardy Boys which was lame but I enjoyed it and thought Parker Stevenson or is that Stephenson, was just dreamy, in my teen years