cult film freak: OLIVER REED DOUBLE FEATURE ON 'THE SAINT' WITH ROGER MOORE

Oliver Reed on two 1963 episodes of THE SAINT starring Roger Moore

In his early troubled-youth pictures THE SYSTEM and THE PARTY'S OVER, British actor Oliver Reed gave his future roles away with imitations that are, in those cases, poking fun of either Americans or the typical cinematic Gangster...

The latter being used in the episode SOPHIA where Roger Moore's THE SAINT finds himself in rural Greece where the episode's titular character (played by a gorgeous Imogen Hassall)... the daughter of a stubborn, old-fashioned pub owner... is anticipating her supposedly rich New Yorker cousin...

Oliver Reed in THE SAINT episode SOPHIA

And in that, Reed's Aristides Koralis, with a voice like a Bogart-era heavy, is about as dramatic as his name; and with the usual wide, menacing eyes, he's pretty frightening...

But eventually realizes the meager village, that he initially looked down upon as he plans to snag a treasure recently discovered by an anthropologist, is tougher than he thinks, making this role not only his usual smug and hardened but frightened, vulnerable, cagey...

Score for The Saint: KING OF THE BEGGARS: ****1/2 and for SOPHIA ****

The prior episode, KING OF THE BEGGARS, has Reed as a thug for an operation much like a side-character in the Film Noir classic NIGHT AND THE CITY as here, an Italian city's homeless population are being used by a syndicate to gather all money begged into a big pot where they get half share: A sort of Bum's union.

Before Reed discovers his CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF co-star Yvonne Romain is a stage actress pretending to be a bum in order to get into character for the night's show, he's taken Roger Moore's THE SAINT Simon Templar, who's pretending to be a blind beggar, into the gang's mysterious clutches...

Oliver Reed ruling the episode SOPHIA as a gun-wielding gangster

This episode provides Moore a terrific performance as he investigates the scam that Reed (using an Italian accent this time) protects, often at gunpoint, and herein both Moore and Reed, who was also considered to replace Sean Connery as James Bond, work really good against each other...

And while KING OF THE BEGGARS is a superior episode, building not only suspense but overall mystery of who and what's exactly behind everything, Reed is merely a cog in the wheel while in SOPHIA he drives the whole machine.