Bring The Magic Home!: The Story Of ITC's Carlton Video Home Entertainment

3 - The Famous Simon Templar

Prior to releasing the first ITC series, Carlton already had a number of popular series they were released on video for both children and adults alike;

For the case such as Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, the film was released on DVD on 15th November 1999. Some of the earlier Carlton DVD releases include films such as The 39 Steps (which I've performed for theatre). But the first ITC series that was to see a Carlton release was The Saint: The Fiction Makers. This had been a two-parter and was edited in the late 1960s as a complied film. The Fiction Makers had actually been a book written by Leslie Charteris and was, naturally, adapted for the series. The film had been released in America under CBS Fox Video and by Channel 5 in the UK in 1987, and by Polygram Video. The opening and closing titles had been remade for this feature-length adaptation. The Fiction Makers video was released on the 10th April 2000 by Carlton Video. On the tape, the 1999 drama promo was featured before the start of the video. This release can be described as like a "vanilla" of the ITC series. Meaning that this is like a test or a pilot for further releases. After testing a release out, Carlton could then go on and begin releasing more The Saint and other ITC titles. And indeed they would. Therefore, The Fiction Makers is a significant home video release, making it the first ITC series to have a release in the 21st century, and be used as a "vanilla" to help test the release range. The following month, ITC films were becoming available from Carlton, under the banner "The Silver Collection". Saturn 3, rated a 15, featured the copyright warning, and the Carlton video logo and included English subtitles, interactive menus, and scene access. The copyright logo would look something like on this Youtube vid.

Followed by the logo above (apologies for some of the poorer forms of quality but this is the best I could do on Youtube). All the same would apply for the Capricorn One release, rated PG. Both titles were released on 22nd May 2000. By this time, however, plans were well underway for the first volumes of a large portion of classic ITC titles...