Could Simon Templar have been an inspiration for James Bond?

Monsieur Sixte

I’m new here, and very conscious of posting things that might have been posted here many years ago, so the following might fall into that category. If so then my apologies. If it has been mentioned here before could you give me some links? I want to learn as much as I can about the fictional (if any) antecedents of Bond.

See: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/17/movies/l-james-bond-simon-templar-was-a-template-662429.html

Quote:

"In her article 'Morning, Moneypenny. Glad to See Me Again?' [June 26], Suzanna Andrews implies that the James Bond films originated the combination of violent international intrigue with elegant wine, women and wit. Yet the tuxedo-clad boulevardier battling the forces of global evil is an ancient cinematic and literary conceit. The most obvious progenitor of James Bond in both fields was Simon Templar, the Saint, created by Leslie Charteris and played by Louis Hayward and George Sanders in a series of films during the late 1930's and early 40's.

Charteris's first Saint novel, ‘The Saint Meets the Tiger’ (1929), was filmed in 1940 and provides as good a template as any for 007. Roger Moore's years of playing Templar on television were, after all, a perfect apprenticeship for Bond."

Thunderpussy

Leslie Charteris thought so and complained that Bond was
Templar. Although all heroes have to follow a select set of
Rules, so all are similar. From Robin Hood to Richard Hannay.

Monsieur Sixte

Yes, Hannay comes to mind too.

Is there any information on whether Fleming was influenced by either Templar or Hannay? I can’t find anything—not even about the sort of fiction he read that could have influenced him. I wonder if he read any Bulldog Drummond and Biggles books.

clublos

I believe he read Buchan and Maugham?

Thunderpussy

I believe Fleming wrote QOS in the style or homage to Maugham.

Monsieur Sixte

Thunderpussy wrote:

I believe Fleming wrote QOS in the style or homage to Maugham.

Yes, that's right. He was a great fan of Maugham.

Thunderpussy

I remember first reading it at about 12 or 13 and hated it.
No fights, no car chases etc, but give it twenty years or so.
A few relationships and suddenly it becomes a brilliant
Observation on the death of a marriage -{ showing how
Skilled a writer Fleming was.

Gala Brand

In addition to Hannay, Templar, and Drummond, you could add Denis Nayland Smith (Fu Manchu books), Raffles, Gregory Sallust and others. The difference between Bond and the others is a. Bond had a sex life (and a rather active one), and b. there is a broken quality to Bond. He's an alcoholic and a nicotine addict, he's melancholic (depressed?), he only "gets the girl" once and she promptly gets murdered, his best friend is horribly disfigured, and Bond is often seriously injured, sometimes brought close to death. These differences are what made Fleming a literary genius and Bond such an enduring character.

Mr Snow

Here is a similar thread.

https://ajb007.co.uk/topic/48772/what-if-roger-moore-was-the-first-bond-instead-of-connery/

DavidJones

Fleming had read Buchan, Sapper and, I think, E. Phillips Oppenheim as an adolescent.

Curiously, Templar's similarity to Bond is not often mentioned. In the Saint books, Templar is ruthless but also ebullient.

Roger's Saint series is basically Bond.

Danvers Nettlefold

It has also been persuasively argued that Dennis Wheatley's World War 2 secret agent Gregory Sallust was one of 007's closest literary ancestors:

http://www.jeremy-duns.com/aspyisborn

And having recently re-read all of Wheatley's Sallust novels, I would certainly concur.