Fearing the cost of renewing the rights to their popular B-movie hero The Saint, RKO acquired a short detective story by Michael Arlen called Gay Falcon and set about bringing it to the screen.

They renamed Gay Falcon’s hero, Gay Falcon, to Gay Lawrence (well, Gay Laurence at first, but I don’t think that really matters), moved his previous surname to be a reasonless Saint-like nickname, and in the lead role cast “Russian-born English film and television actor, singer-songwriter, music composer, and author” (and, later, voice of Shere Khan in Disney’s Jungle Book), George Sanders, the incumbent Saint. RKO had crafted a new franchise that was so like the Saint — but, presumably, cheaper — that Leslie Charteris sued (it was settled out of court).

Sanders stuck around for the first handful of Falcon films before he decided to leave the role. But I’m getting ahead of myself — let’s first look at the three films that established this Saint-but-not…

In the ’30s and ’40s, RKO adapted Leslie Charteris’ series of novels about a modern-day Robin Hood called the Saint into a series of eight films. Following the departure of George Sanders for the similar Falcon series (of which more soon), the mantle of the Saint was adopted by English actor Hugh Sinclair. He may have had the look of a quasi-aristocratic man of action, but Sinclair was no match for the actors that went before, though it apparently wasn’t his fault the series fizzled to an end so quickly.

He ultimately appeared in just two Saint films, which I have naturally reviewed here:

In the ’30s and ’40s, RKO adapted Leslie Charteris’ series of novels about a modern-day Robin Hood called the Saint into a series of eight films — you may recall I reviewed the first last month. Five of these films starred “Russian-born English film and television actor, singer-songwriter, music composer, and author” (and, later, voice of Shere Khan in Disney’s Jungle Book), George Sanders.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because I wrote the same thing yesterday. What’s different, naturally, are the reviews: here the final three films to star Mr Sanders as Mr Templar. So without further ado…

In the ’30s and ’40s, RKO adapted Leslie Charteris’ series of novels about a modern-day Robin Hood called the Saint into a series of eight films — you may recall I reviewed the first last month. Five of these films starred “Russian-born English film and television actor, singer-songwriter, music composer, and author” (and, later, voice of Shere Khan in Disney’s Jungle Book), George Sanders.

Being the kind of completist I am, I’ve naturally watched all of these films (also because they’re entertaining and were all on TV at once); and, being massively behind on posting reviews as I am, I thought I’d share my thoughts on them in two or three clumps. The five Sanders films were produced in a period of under two years (from March 1939’s The Saint Strikes Back to January 1941’s The Saint in Palm Springs), so it doesn’t feel wholly inappropriate.

As ever, my thoughts lie behind these pretty pictures…