The Television Films of Roger Moore

The game is afoot yet again for Conan Doyle's enduringly popular detective and this time it's none other than Roger Moore underneath the deerstalker. This television film was not based on any of the literary stories but rather a new screenplay involving Holmes written by Alvin Sapinsley. The director was the experienced Boris Sagal, a man who had credits on many shows. The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Columbo, Peter Gunn, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, amongst others.

Sherlock Holmes in New York has a mixed reputation amongst Holmes enthusiasts but Roger enjoyed making it a great deal as he got to spend some time with friends and co-stars Patrick Macnee and John Huston. About a decade later Roger would manage to get Macnee into his last Bond film and they also worked on 1980's The Sea Wolves together. Some years later Macnee would play Watson again in a couple of cheapjack films with Christopher Lee as Sherlock Holmes.

The premise has Holmes (Roger) and Watson (Patrick Macnee) summoned to New York to investigate a gold theft by Moriarty (John Huston). Matters become complicated though when Irene Adler (Charlotte Rampling) tells Holmes that her son has been kidnapped. Moriarty tells Holmes that if he wants Adler's son to live he must not investigate the gold theft for the New York authorities. Needless to say, Holmes will have to put on his thinking cap if this tricky situation is to turn out for the best.

This film might not be one for Holmes purists but Sherlock Holmes in New York is an enjoyable enough - if fairly undemanding - caper with a cosy television film atmosphere and a very decent cast. Roger is no Jeremy Brett or Peter Cushing but it's fun anyway to see him play Sherlock Holmes. As one might imagine, his Holmes (with extraordinary sideburns) is very suave and debonair. Patrick Macnee is a trifle too bumbling as Watson for my tastes and gives him a cockney accent while John Huston is enjoyable as the Napoleon of Crime - despite the Scottish accent he seems to be groping for. I'm not quite sure we really needed this gaggle of accents in the film.

Roger asked Oliver Reed to play Moriarty but Reed was apparently irritated by always being offered the part of the villain and so declined the offer. I can't remember the details now but Roger said in his biography Oliver Reed didn't like him very much. The always interesting Charlotte Rampling is very good as Irene Adler although purists (there's that word again) might not be completely happy with the suggestion here that Holmes is the father of her son.

The actual detective work parts of the story are very entertaining and I liked the central mystery that Holmes has to work out with the theft of gold from the bank vault. The solution to the problem is quite clever. This film is no Private Life of Sherlock Holmes but Sherlock Holmes in New York is not bad at all. The reviews for this film are pretty dismal online with a mediocre IMDB score but it's far from a complete disaster. It's a bit hammy and rough around the edges in places but remains fairly watchable. I've certainly seen worse Sherlock Holmes films than this.

The Man Who Wouldn't Die is an enjoyable, although sadly little seen, Roger Moore television film from 1995 directed by Bill Condon (who would distinguish himself with Gods and Monsters a few years later). The premise has Roger as Thomas Grace, a mystery writer turned journalist hack who used real life behind bars criminal Bernard Drake (played by Malcolm McDowell) as the basis for his fictional villain.

Anyway, it turns out that Drake might not be behind bars anymore and has revenge (he obviously didn't take too kindly to being the inspiration for Grace's books) on his mind. He intends to frame Thomas Grace for a batch of murders. Grace eventually has to team up with psychic waitress (Nancy Allen) to foil Drake's plans...

As with Sherlock Holmes in New York, this film has a fairly dismal IMDB score but I think The Man Who Wouldn't Die is pretty decent fun if your expectations aren't too high going in. This is a stylish little film that is well worth watching if you've never seen it before. The fantasy sequences (where Grace imagines himself as heroes from his books) are nicely photographed and inventively shot with use of black & white and Roger is very good in the film too.

Roger seems to enjoy playing this part and is quite charismatic in the film. He works especially well with Nancy Allen when their characters team up together. I personally wouldn't have minded a Diagnosis Murder type television show featuring Roger and Nancy Allen as Grace and Jessie solving murders and mysteries each week! Malcolm McDowell, the old ham, wastes no opportunity to guzzle the scenery in his usual fashion but he's entertaining as the baddie.

McDowell was completely typecast as a hammy villain decades ago (McDowell has basically been giving the same performance in every film since the 1970s) but I don't suppose he's complaining because it paid the bills and he does have films like If... and A Clockwork Orange on his CV. All the cast play their roles a little on the ripe side with some relish and it captures the spirit of the piece with Condon's delirious and very effective direction. The Man Who Wouldn't Die is fairly good fun and worth tracking down. It's an oddly obscure film though despite the good cast and Bill Condon - who actually later directed some of the Twilight vampire films. I can't remember ever encountering this film on television anywhere.

The Enemy, with a story by Desmond Bagley to work from, is a direct to DVD action/espionage caper starring Luke Perry as Mike Ashton, a young scientist who gets into all sorts of trouble because his father, also a scientist, created a biological weapon and now some nasty terrorists want to get their mitts on it. Or something like that. I may have dozed off a few times so forgive me if I can't remember the precise nuts and bolts of the plot.

This is a rather silly slice of straight to DVD nonsense that is pretty bad despite the eclectic cast. The late Luke Perry is dull as the lead but you do get Roger and Tom Conti as veteran agents mixed up in the intrigue. Roger is Superintendent Ogilvie and seems to be an old MI6 agent or something. He's coasting here but brings a certain gravitas to the film now that he's an elder statesman. The Wonder Years star Olivia d'Abo and Horst Bucholz fill out some of the other roles.

This film was much more of a slog for me than The Man Who Wouldn't Die and you can understand why it has been completely forgotten and has an abysmal IMDB score. There are exploding cars and twists and turns in the film aplenty but despite all this the film is dull and uninvolving and the direction isn't very good. I think one of the main problems the film has is that the two leads Luke Perry and Olivia d'Abo don't have enough charisma and acting chops to carry a film - even a straight to DVD clunker of a film. These two actors had their best roles on television as part of a large competent ensemble cast. When you stick them out there in the front of something they unavoidably become the weak links.

The Enemy was shot in Luxembourg (doubling for Canada) and Roger had a fine time there with many days off. He even met up with his old Bond director friend John Glen as Glen was preparing a film there. This film is barely a Roger Moore film though. It was obviously just something he spent a few days on for a cheque. He is quite good in the film though and Roger and Tom Conti bring a polished air of competence that the two younger leads fail to conjure. To be honest you've got no good reason to ever sit through The Enemy and I wouldn't recommend it but Roger completists might want to take a look purely out of curiosity.

A Princess for Christmas (aka A Christmas Princess, Castlebury Hall, A Princess for Castlebury) is Hallmark Channel family fluff aimed at kids and revolves around Jules Daly (Katie McGrath), a young guardian spending Christmas with her nephew and niece. The family get an invitation to visit their wealthy grandfather at his castle and, wouldn't you know it, a Prince (Sam Heughan) ends up falling for Jules.

This is pleasant enough Christmas fare and aimed primarily at young girls I'd imagine. Roger plays Duke Edward of Castlebury, the somewhat cold grandfather but it won't come as a huge surprise to learn that his heart warms before the film is out and the Christmas spirit wins the day. This was one of the last things Roger Moore did. He later had a cameo in a bargain basement Saint television film but that film was so bad I honestly couldn't get through it. A Princess for Christmas, by contrast, is perfectly competent for what it is and is the sort of film you could leave on in the background at Christmas purely for its cosy atmosphere.

You may recognise Katie McGrath from Merlin and Sam Heughan later became best known for the television show Outlander (which I've never watched). Heughan said he auditioned to become James Bond for Casino Royale but was deemed too young. The cast is very solid in this film although you probably didn't need to be Meryl Streep to play these parts. A Princess for Christmas is not exactly my cup of tea but I'd definitely much rather watch this again than Bullseye! or that terrible Spice Girls film Roger appeared in.

The film was made at Peleș Castle in Romania. Roger spent six days working on the film so it must have been a pretty nice job. He just hung around at a castle, had some nice lunches in Bucharest and then went back to his Swiss ski lodge to watch Dad's Army DVDs with his beans on toast. The costumes and backdrops in the film are very pleasant and this will probably pass the time agreeably enough for younger viewers during the Christmas season. Hallmark have probably made ten billion films of this type and Christmas television films of this ilk are ten a penny in general but this one is at least a novelty for featuring one of the last performances by Roger Moore.

- Jake

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