Film "The Saint": The Episode on Baccarat Casino Game

Film The Saint, speaking about British TV series which were very popular since 1962 till 1969 in many countries, can also be called one of baccarat card game's movies if speak about one its concrete episode. This episode of the film The Saint is called to be "The Ex-King of Diamonds", and baccarat card game plays the main role there actually because the film's plot is particularly about baccarat cheating.

The Saint is a spy thriller and the main character of the film is Simon Templar (played by Roger Moore) which nickname is the Saint (the abbreviation of his name, ST, is also the abbreviation of the word "saint"). Being the British TV series, The Saint became very popular in America where it was shown instead of many other TV programs.

The Ex-King of Diamonds

In France the Saint meets new friends (an adventurer and a mathematician with his daughter) and they come to a casino where they become amazed by the successful play of the ex-king of Slavonia. The ex-king (Boris) plays baccarat and he is very lucky to win all the time.

Our main heroes begin to suspect that Boris is a great baccarat cheater actually and soon it becomes clear that Boris tries to gain a lot of money in order to return his power of a king and his throne: he uses marked cards during his baccarat play. These cards are marked by infra-red dye and Boris sees them using a colored monocle.

The Saint together with Rod (an adventurer) finds and destroys the factory which makes those marked cards for Boris; and during this time Henri (a mathematician) invites the ex-king to play baccarat with him, but now Boris is forced to play without any cheating, using ordinary cards.

Anything familiar?

"The Ex-King of Diamonds" episode had been represented in 1968 and probably its plot seemed to be rather familiar for some people. It is not surprising actually because some more spy films can be found where the idea of playing cards is used: for example, a well-known Casino Royale where a big sum of money is needed to be won quickly by playing cards in order to give debts back.

The film Kaleidoscope can represent us the idea of card marking during a game, and do not forget also about Mission Impossible! Well, as we can see, the idea of cards, casinos, casino cheating is rather popular for spy films but, certainly, it does not matter as we love all of them for this fact too.