PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Saint's Return 1953

The Saint's Return is a 1953 British movie that was released as The Saint's Girl Friday in the USA. It was ten years since the last RKO Saint picture.It's only superficially part of the series, some film sites include it and some don't. It was produced by Hammer Film Production, and distributed by RKO in the US. They had hopes of reviving The Saint as a movie series. It didn't happen. It's got a screenplay written by Allan MacKinnon and it's directed by Seymour Friedman.

Louis Hayward returns to the role of Simon Templar. He had appeared as The Saint in the first RKO Saint film back in 1938. He plays The Saint a bit differently the second time out. He was more the tough guy in the first, more sophisticated in the last. In this picture The Saint gets a cry for help from an old friend. When he arrives in London a few days later the woman had died in a suspicious auto accident.

The Saint goes after the guys what did it, a gambling ring that plays for keeps, and smashes their lights in. There's more deaths along the way but The Saint keeps ahead of Inspector Teal, who's played by Charles Victor. The Saint's old pal Hoppy Uniatz appears on screen for the first time. In the books he's an American gangster of dubious intelligence. Here he's a British butler with a big streak of larceny. He's more like Orace, the Saint's British butler in the novels. Hoppy would return in an episode of the Roger Moore TV series. I enjoyed the guy. He'd accidentally kill people, then get all sheepish.

It's got a descent plot going but the movie seems to poke along. The print that's available online is pretty poor. It's fuzzy and grey. Sadly, there are only bootlegs of the movie available, even in the UK there's no real release. You can see various versions on YouTube. Here's one. I kept a copy to have one. It would have been nice to see a better copy of the movie.

The Saint Meets The Tiger 1943

The Saint Meets The Tiger is the last of the 8 RKO Saint pictures. Paul L Stein is the director and Leslie Arliss, Wolfgang Wilhelm and James Seymour adapted the Leslie Charteris novel Meet The Tiger. Like the last Saint movie this one was made in England with money that had to be left in the country. I often like the style of the older movie poster but the poster above sure seems crap to me. At least the illustrations are pretty poor.

The Saint Meets The Tiger came out in 1943 but had been produced two years earlier. There was a delay while RKO and Charteris had an argument over RKO starting a series called The Falcon. RKO moved George Sanders from The Saint to The Falcon. Charteris thought it was a copy of The Saint. It really was.

Hugh Sinclair returns to play the Saint for the second and last time. Jean Gillie is Patricia Holm, the Saint's girlfriend in several of the novels. It's only one of two appearances by the character in a film or TV show.

The Saint finds a dead guy on his step and he starts to look into the man's story. He finds smugglers and murder. They seem to go hand in hand. There's beatings to hand our and loot to be had.

It's just not quite as good as the last Saint film. It's not awful or anything, just not as good. Sinclair is good as the Saint but George was better. That would be the end of the Saint being produced at RKO. They'd continue making The Falcon films. The Saint series are a lot of fun and I'm glad to have seen them. Some now several times. A good addition to any crime library. The books aren't always everyone's cup of tea but I'd recommend them too.

The Saint In Palm Springs 1941

George Sanders makes his last appearance as The Saint in The Saint In Palm Springs. It's a 1941 RKO production and the 6th of their 8 Saint films. The five George Sanders films are collection in a set from Warner Archives. It's got a screenplay by Jerome Cady and it's directed by Jack Hively.

Inspector Fernack, played for the last time by Jonathan Hale, asks Simon Templar to protect a trio of rare stamps in a trip from New York to Palm Springs. There the $215,000 dollar stamps are to be delivered to Wendy Barrie. It's her third and last appearance in a Saint movie, all the parts were different characters.

In Palm Springs The Saint runs into his new pal from the last movie, Paul Guilfoyle playing Pearly Gates, at the resort where Wendy works as a tennis pro. Various people populate the resort and there are attempts to steal the stamps. Toss in some spies and you've got plenty to keep you interested.

The Saint puts the villains to rest eventually and there's plenty of fun along the way. I'll be sad to see George move on but he's still pretty entertaining in The Falcon series right after this. Hugh Sinclair takes over the character for the last two films in the RKO series. I've got those to watch soon.

The Saint Takes Over 1940

The Saint Takes Over is the second Saint movie to come out in 1940 and the fifth of the RKO series. The screenplay was written by Lynn Root and Frank Fenton and Jack Hively is the director.

The Saint is New York bound on an ocean cruiser when he discovers that his old pal Inspector Henry Fernack has been framed by a syndicate of crooks. They planted 50,000 smackers on Fernack and he's been suspended from the force.

When the Saint arrives the bodies start to pile up. First the guy who set up the frame is gunned down by an unseen gunman. $90,000 disappears out of his safe. Two others in the syndicate die and the Saint is starting to suspect Fernack, who just happens to be there when the shootings happened. We know for sure that Henry didn't do one of those killings.

Wendy Barrie plays the romantic lead, she's naughty beneath that nice exterior, and she comes to a bad end. Jonathan Hale plays Inspector Fernack and he's just as much fun in this movie as he is in the others. He's one of my favorite characters in the series. He's more entertaining than the Inspector Teal character. Paul Guilfoyle plays a stray crook that the Saint blackmails to work for him. That guy sure has his way with people.

The Saint sets up the crooks and that's pretty much the end of them. It's a good story, bit of a sad ending. I enjoyed it, in the past, now, and in the future.

The Saint's Double Touble 1940

The fourth of The Saint series from RKO is called The Saint's Double Trouble and it came out 1940. They sure cranked them out in those days. Ben Holmes wrote the screenplay, with some story input from Leslie Charteris, and Jack Hively is the director.

George Sanders plays Simon Templar and crime boss Duke Bates. Bela Lugosi plays Duke's crime buddy, cleverly named The Partner. Jonathan Hale is back as Inspector Fernack and Helene Whitney plays the daughter of an old friend of The Saint. Bela sends a mummy to Helene's father with The Saint's name on the box.

Later Duke Bates sneaks into the house to steal something from the mummy. Helene thinks he's The Saint. Later one of Duke's thugs sneaks back to retrieve something from the Mummy and kills Helene's father. The Saint goes after Duke and his gang with results that you can easily imagine. It was as much fun as the others I've watched so far. I like these older films, they're nice and short, about an hour. There's not much time for any nonsense, keep the story going at a nice brisk pace.

The Saint In London 1939

The Saint In London is a 1939 film that was based on Leslie Charteris' novella The Thousand Pound Day. It's the third of the RKO series. Lynn Root and Frank Fenton wrote the screenplay and John Paddy Carstairs is the director. Lynn would write the next Saint film, followed by three of The Falcon films. Frank co-wrote several films with Lynn and several on his own. John Paddy would only direct the one Saint film before he would go onto direct a good number of films I've never seen. Near the end of his career John Paddy would help get the 1962 Roger Moore TV series The Saint on the air. He would direct 2 episodes before he retired a couple of years later.

Simon Templar gets mixed up with a counterfeiter ring. David Burns plays Dugan, a pickpocket, that The Saint takes under his wing. He was entertaining, as was, Sally Gray is the perky romantic interest. The story moves along briskly, there's a bit of danger, plenty of snappy patter, and a few laughs. It's one of the best of the lot. Leslie Charteris said it was his favorite. I have enjoyed it every time I've seen it. All the George Sanders Saint films are available in a nice DVD set from Warners Archive, it's usually under thirty bucks on Amazon.

The Saint Strikes Back 1939

The Saint Strikes Back came out in 1939 and it's the 2nd in the RKO Saint series. George Sanders takes over the role of Simon Templar. The screenplay by John Twist adapts the 1931 novel She Was A Lady by Leslie Charteris. John Farrow is the director.

At a New Years party Simon guns down a henchman of gangster Valerie Travers before he can shoot someone else. Valerie's policeman father was framed by a gangster named Waldeman. Daddy committed suicide and Valerie wants some revenge. Simon decides to help her in her campaign. He's much better at that sort of thing.

The Saint was so successful killing off criminals in New York, the police ask him to kill some more in San Francisco. Inspector Fernack waffles between arresting The Saint and marrying him. Simon gets the truth on the frame and the mysterious Waldeman, then he's off for more fun and adventure.

I like George Sanders as The Saint and his debut film is entertaining. It's nice to see Jonathan Hale as Inspector Fernack too. A good film to have in one's collection. The 5 George Sanders films with him as The Saint are available as a five film VOD set from Warners. They also have a 2 film set of the two Saint films that came after George left to play The Falcon but not the first RKO Saint film.

The Saint In New York 1938

The Saint In New York is the first of the RKO films with Leslie Charteris' character The Saint. It's a 1938 movie with Louis Hayward as Simon Templar. Hayward would return to the character in the 1953 film The Saint's Girl Friday, which is also known as The Saint's Return. George Sanders would take over the character in the second RKO film and remain for 4 more sequels. George would go onto play The Falcon for RKO and he'd be replaced by Hugh Sinclair for the last two films.

In 1937 Alfred Hitchcock met with RKO, he was interested in directing the film, but it was directed by Ben Holmes in the end. Charles Kaufman and Mortimer Offner wrote the screenplay based on the 1935 Charteris novel of the same name.

There's plenty of crime in New York City and the crime commission is out of ideas. One members suggests fighting fire with fire and he talks Simon Templar into coming to New York to fight crime. The Saint decides he likes the idea and agrees to break up the powerful underworld gang at the head of the crime wave. In his first act Simon saves the life of Police Inspector Henry Fernack, played by Jonathan Hale, and the two men become friendly. I always enjoy Jonathan as Inspector Fernack. The Saint rips up the underworld gang and leaves a trail of dead crooks lying around. He catches the head of the gang, the secretive Big Fellow, in a big reveal at the end of the film.

It was an entertaining film with some fights and some quips. I liked Hayward as The Saint, he's more like the character in the books of the time. The script is pretty good and there are a few good character actors in the cast. Keep an eye out for Jack Carson, Sig Ruman, Charles Halton and Paul Guilfoyle.

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a reasonably priced DVD in the US, there is a DVD on Amazon UK that goes from £13 for a used copy to £39 for a new one. The only DVD listed on Amazon US is the UK one and the seller is asking nearly 80 bucks. I was lucky enough to find a descent download the other day. It's better than the copy from Turner Classic Movies I'd have. Since it's been more than a decade since I watched the movie, it was a good reason to check it out once again.

The Saint 1989 TV Series

I'm a big fan of The Saint and for me Roger Moore is the best Simon Templar. I did like the George Sanders version of the character but that's partly liking George. Roger isn't the character from the early books, the meaner Simon Templar, the one who'd shoot you dead, more like the version in the later novels. As you'd expect the TV series is a bit cleaned up. Simon still gets to right wrongs and meet all the lovely ladies. He puts the baddie in his place, occasionally that means six feet under, but it's usually in a gun battle or some such set up so Simon just isn't gunning the guy down in cold blood.

Simon Dutton plays Simon Templar in this 6 episode series from London Weekend Television. Each episode was aired in a two hour slot and runs about 95 minutes without all the commercials. The Simon Dutton page at The Saint fan site says the episodes were part of The Mystery Wheel of Adventure. There were 10 episodes aired, 6 were The Saint, the last 4 were adaptions of Dick Francis novels with Ian McShane playing detective David Cleveland.

I've only watched the episode Wrong Number so far, and I found it much less entertaining than the Roger Moore series. It's presented in a more serious way than the older series. It's set modern day and Simon stumbles into a spy thing involving rockets while he's in Berlin. The Berlin wall makes an appearance. Vince Edwards is a guest star. I thought it was a bit pokey, like the story would have been better in a hour format. The production values are OK but the filming is pedestrian, nothing too interesting. I'll watch them all at sometime. You can check them out at a link above. The YouTube page that they reside on has a lot of other British shows that I'm going to check out someday.

The Saint Series 6

I'm all done with The Saint for now. The 6th and last series has 20 episodes and like the last series they are all in color. The total number of episodes is 118.

Here's the episodes, below the page break, with synopsis by don @ minifie-1.