've been revisiting episodes of the classy British (redundant?) detective series The Saint from the '60s. Roger Moore was the star and played a world-renowned detective and bon vivant who traveled the globe doing good by helping to solve crimes.
One of last night's episodes -- The Pearls of Peace (1962) -- was set in a fictitious fishing village in Mexico where an idealistic young friend of Moore's Simon Templar named Brad (Bob Kanter) finds himself stranded after being swindled and blinded during a fight with an unscrupulous comrade (Robin Hughes). The two men went to Mexico to dive for pearls of great price, with the younger leaving his beautiful but vain girlfriend (Erica Rogers) back in New York with a promise to return a wealthy man and worthy of marriage.
When Templar finds young Brad, he meets the older woman who has been caring for him for the past three years, Consuelo (Dina Paisner), who has been helping the young man hunt for valuable pearls with no luck. She has been tucking away money from her job as a waitress to help pay for Brad's operation that might restore his vision.
She tells Templar she is distressed because if his eyesight is indeed restored he won't think she is beautiful and will leave her, presumably because she has tawny skin and dark hair.
Quite a dilemma and for the times quite an interesting statement about race. Though Templar was supportive of the angelic Consuelo and brutally frank with the gold digging girlfriend, his final word was inner beauty was more important and enduring.
While certainly true, the statement falls short of challenging the beauty standards of the day -- no doubt to keep advertiser dollars flowing in -- and declaring Consuelo possessed both outer AND inner beauty. That would have been quite the saintly move.
One of last night's episodes -- The Pearls of Peace (1962) -- was set in a fictitious fishing village in Mexico where an idealistic young friend of Moore's Simon Templar named Brad (Bob Kanter) finds himself stranded after being swindled and blinded during a fight with an unscrupulous comrade (Robin Hughes). The two men went to Mexico to dive for pearls of great price, with the younger leaving his beautiful but vain girlfriend (Erica Rogers) back in New York with a promise to return a wealthy man and worthy of marriage.
When Templar finds young Brad, he meets the older woman who has been caring for him for the past three years, Consuelo (Dina Paisner), who has been helping the young man hunt for valuable pearls with no luck. She has been tucking away money from her job as a waitress to help pay for Brad's operation that might restore his vision.
She tells Templar she is distressed because if his eyesight is indeed restored he won't think she is beautiful and will leave her, presumably because she has tawny skin and dark hair.
Quite a dilemma and for the times quite an interesting statement about race. Though Templar was supportive of the angelic Consuelo and brutally frank with the gold digging girlfriend, his final word was inner beauty was more important and enduring.
While certainly true, the statement falls short of challenging the beauty standards of the day -- no doubt to keep advertiser dollars flowing in -- and declaring Consuelo possessed both outer AND inner beauty. That would have been quite the saintly move.
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