After two fun adventures, here RKO’s series turns in my least favourite film to star George Sanders as the Saint.

In the first film to not be directly based on a Leslie Charteris book (though he did contribute the story, according to the opening credits), the Saint arrives in Philadelphia to meet an old friend, only to get entangled in a series of murders that he may or may not have perpetrated. And that’s fine, but the way events unfold feels like no one paid a huge amount of attention to the plot. It all just about makes sense, if you care to think about it, and some of it is deliberately confusing — the “double trouble” of the title is a criminal who’s the spitting image of the Saint, meaning there’s occasional confusion about who we’re watching. But I don’t think that excuses everything; instead, I believe it’s structured to sweep you along from one bit of derring do to the next. I’ve noted before that I feel like I’m not adequately following some these films, and again I did worry I was being outsmarted, which feels somehow preposterous. I’ve come to the conclusion that a couple of them just don’t hang together as well as they could, and this one in particular.

It also runs foul of being a bit samey. Inspector Fernack is roped in by coincidence — it’s always entertaining to have Jonathan Hale and his double act with George Sanders along for the ride, but here Fernack happens to be visiting police force friends in Philadelphia when the Saint happens to turn up in town. Ugh. Then there’s yet another pretty young blonde who’s in love with the Saint but will never pin him down — Helene Whitney is fine in this role, but her character’s not a patch on The Saint Strikes Back‘s Val Travers or The Saint in London‘s Penny.

Sanders is as slick as ever, even if it can be hard work differentiating between the Saint and his doppelgänger even when they’re in the same scene. When we’re not meant to be able to tell, that’s fine; when we are, it’s sometimes tricky. I’m pretty sure the difference is entirely held in one wearing a dark-grey-and-black suit and one wearing a black suit, though even now I can’t remember which was which. A bit more effort in establishing who was in which suit wouldn’t have gone amiss. Either way, Sanders isn’t given quite as much wit to work with as normal. There’s some fun to be had when the henchman don’t realise whether they’re talking to their lookalike boss or the man he looks like — their frequent misunderstandings naturally mean Hilarity Ensues — but the rest of the film doesn’t have the same knowing edge as normal.

Almost every film series has its duds, and I imagine churning out two or three a year is only likely to increase that likelihood. Fortunately the remaining two films to star Sanders — both of them again directed by Jack Hively, incidentally — would be better than this.

Read my thoughts on the four other films to star George Sanders as the Saint here and here.

* As with many of the Saint films, this has apparently not been passed by the BBFC since its release in 1940. Nonetheless, it’s available on DVD, rated PG. ^

The third film in RKO’s Saint series is a bit of a mixed bag, from my point of view.

Let’s start with the bad. I’ve said it before and I will say similar again, but I found the plot to be over-complicated, like I wasn’t following it. I can’t help but feel this is my fault, because that’s not really what you expect from this vintage of adventure film, though perhaps I was just expecting too much clarity. Conversely, it was creator Leslie Charteris’ favourite film — he even dedicated a book to the director because of it.

It’s again based on a Charteris story, The Million Pound Day (part of The Holy Terror, or The Saint vs. Scotland Yard in the US), and sees the Saint encouraged by a friend to investigate Bruno Lang, who as far as I could tell didn’t appear to have done anything; but then he gets sidetracked looking into something to do with the printing of foreign currency, and… well, it goes from there.

Still, the followability of the plot is only one element. Humour is the film’s strongest point, I’d say. It’s not a comedy, but it goes about its business with wit and verve. If it were a Bond film (and we’ll return to that in a second), it would be a late Connery or one of the better Moores, where the threat still feels real enough but our hero is having a bit of fun, even if he would really rather be cracking a joke than cracking heads.

I bring up Bond again because this is perhaps the most proto-Bond of all the Saint films. Within the first few minutes we have a tuxedoed Saint introduce himself as “Templar, Simon Templar”, enter a fancy restaurant where he drinks a martini, and expertly orders a swish meal and the appropriate wine to go with it. Later, villain Bruno Lang (because yes, he is relevant in the end) is a somewhat Bondian villain, a powerful man with a grand plan who thinks he’s smarter than our hero. Which he isn’t, of course. Perhaps there was an abundance of these kind of heroes in the middle decades of the twentieth century, but as Bond is the only one that’s endured while retaining the same iconography, these similarities are striking.

Sanders is again an enjoyable persona to spend time with. Here he’s partnered with David Burns as pickpocket-turned-manservant Dugan, the kind of role the series repeats with new characters across its run, though Burns is as fun as anyone. As Scotland Yard’s Inspector Teal, Gordon McLeod is adequate but a bit of a poor stand-in for Fernack. Considering the latter is rather shoehorned into some of the US-set films, it’s sensibly plausible that they didn’t force him into this one too.

Best of all is Sally Gray as Penny Parker, a charming girl Templar bumps into — as he’s wont to do — who forcibly strings along for the ride. Every film in the series contains a pretty young thing who falls for the Saint, and who he seems to fall for back before casually disregarding at the end — at least Bond faded to black, leaving the inevitable parting off-screen, whereas Templar is almost callous-with-a-smile. Of all the girls the series offers, though, plucky Penny is the one you’d wish had stuck around. Even with that silly hat.

I started off thinking The Saint in London was one of the lesser films in the series — the absence of Fernack is somewhat felt and I still don’t quite understand how the villains’ scheme worked. But the triple act of Sanders, Gray and Burns works so nicely that, on reflection, I enjoy it all the more.

Read my thoughts on the four other films to star George Sanders as the Saint here and here.

The first film to star the Roger Moore-ish George Sanders as Simon Templar, aka the titular Saint, is also one of the RKO series’ better entries.

For starters, John Farrow’s direction is admirably slick for ’30s B-movie filler. One of the first shots of the film is a grand single take through a nightclub; not the longest shot ever, of course, but very effective, including a neat balloon-popping reveal of the movie’s villainess — a most striking introduction. There are a couple of directorial flourishes along these lines throughout the movie, including a bizarre hallucination sequence and a final tracking shot that loses the Saint in the fog.

If there’s one thing the Saint series is surprisingly good at it’s evoking a place. Each film seems to occupy a different setting (though there are a couple of trips to New York throughout the series) and, though I suppose fundamentally arbitrary, they do a solid job of reminding the viewer where they are. It’s no coincidence that almost half follow a The Saint in… title format. Here it’s The Saint in San Francisco, evoked with very atmospheric opening shots of the Golden Gate bridge — presumably stock footage, but its fogginess is carried on to the studio sets/backlot the film transfers to.

To be frank, I found the plot to be equally foggy in places. It’s adapted from one of Saint creator Leslie Charteris’ novels (She Was a Lady, aka Angels of Doom or The Saint Meets His Match) and perhaps it’s the legacy of squishing a book down into an hour of screentime. It’s not ludicrously unfollowable, just… foggy. The ending in particular seemed fudged, rushed, or just not as clear as it should be.

Nonetheless, it’s mostly a fun romp. Sanders’ portrayal of Templar is witty and enjoyably knowing, even more so than Louis Hayward in the previous film. He’s at once more laid-back and less self-certain; by which I mean you can sometimes see him working out his devilishly clever plans as he goes along, rather than floating through with invulnerability. This Saint is the kind of man who’ll bluff that a criminal’s house is surrounded by police so that he can escape, but then can’t resist phoning back to have a little gloat about how his bluff worked. Lighter, jokier — if Hayward was Sean Connery, Sanders is (as noted) Roger Moore. Though I’ve never seen the ’60s TV series, here I can see clearly how Moore was suited to the role.

Returning as Inspector Fernack, Jonathan Hale has a great double act with Sanders. Their relationship clearly grows as the series goes on, but it clicks from the off. He’s a great sidekick and foil, here treated to a neatly constructed subplot about his diet. It’s better than that sounds. Also topping the bill is Wendy Barrie, making the first of three appearances as three different characters. This is her best turn in the series, however, the part being the most interesting of her three roles as well as getting the most to do.

Initially I would have said I preferred in New York to Strikes Back, by a smidgen; but having completed Sanders’ run in the series before writing this review, I’ve further warmed to his portrayal. As I said at the start, this is certainly one of the high points of the run.

Read my thoughts on the four other films to star George Sanders as the Saint here and here.

* As with many of the Saint films, this has apparently not been passed by the BBFC since its release in 1939. Nonetheless, it’s available on DVD, rated PG. ^