The Saint Strikes Back

This is not George Sanders' best "Saint" movie by any stretch("The Saint in London" gets that honor). Instead we get an average low-budget mystery movie that has very few surprises. George Sanders is introduced to us as Simon Templar in this movie. Sanders plays him as a suave, urbane and sophisticated hero, rarely caught off guard("not the man who knows everything, just the man who knows the important things"). Unfortunately the script in this production lets him down. Not only is it less than engaging, it also tends to be needlessly confusing. Wendy Barrie plays the female lead(as she did in two other Sanders-Saint films)but she is much too stiff. I don't have a problem with her playing the character as a tough-as-nails femme-fatale but I think Barrie overdoes it and the result is that her character loses credibility. Neil Hamilton (commissioner Gordon on TV's Batman) plays one of Barrie's associates in crime like some kind of effeminate twit. This undermines what should be a strong bond between him and Barrie. The "surprise" ending is weak and anyone who has not guessed it well in advance has obviously not been paying attention throughout.

There is one great sequence that almost makes the film worth seeing. It occurs when Inspector Fernack(Jonathan Hale) has a bout of indigestion and hallucinates about Lobsters riding trucks(!!). Salvator Dali eat your heart out.

Above mentioned sequence and Sanders are the only reasons to bother with this one (unless you want to see Wendy Barrie chewing on the scenery). I give it 6 lobsters out of 10.

I love B-detective series films like Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes and The Falcon. Sure, they are mighty predictable, but there is also a certain charm and sense of fun about them that is hard to beat. While the Saint series is not my favorite, I have always enjoyed them because I love seeing George Sanders so gracefully navigate himself through the mystery--he was the epitome of cool and sophisticated. Because of this, I often find myself watching the film for his performance but caring little for the actual mystery (so many of them seem similar). However, in this dull effort, I just couldn't get past the lifeless plot and lack of decent supporting characters. Compared to most of the other films in this series, this might just be the worst, though I did appreciate how the film made reference to the prior film (starring Louis Hayward)--giving the film a sense of continuity and context. Now this isn't to say it's bad--but unfortunately, it is only a time-passer and not a whole lot more.

It's not too bad a b movie, with Sanders, Barrie, Hale, Cowen, Hamilton, Gargan, Fitzgerald and even Willie Best we could be either with Charlie Chan, Moto, the Falcon, Blackie, Holmes or the Saint etc. In other words you get the chance to spend another hour in the company of some old friends, from plain to urbane, murdering and being murdered - always a pleasure in my book.

Barrie's a hard-boiled dame out to avenge and clear her framed and dead father, a police detective by planning and carrying out with her coterie a string of underworld assassinations. Which would surely have had the opposite effect! Sanders joins in the fun simply by dancing in the right club in the right place in the right city at the right time with the right lighting falling on both him and the first killer (at the right time!) and killing him.

The story and acting's OK, the only gripe I've got is near the end with the hurried and almost laughable discovery of who the evil genius (Waldeman) was - did they almost forget about his relevance in the plot? That said, a solid entry in the series.

George Sanders made his debut as Leslie Charteris's international man of mystery Simon Templar, AKA The Saint in this film, The Saint Strikes Back. For all the rumors about his crooked ways Sanders is more often helping the local authorities than not, especially if it's doggedly honest Inspector Fernack of the NYPD homicide squad resolutely played as always by Jonanthan Hale.

One gets jet lagged now with the time zone changes and the jet air speeds with coast to coast flights. But Sanders had to have the worst case of it film history as he flies from San Francisco to New York after saving Wendy Barrie from being the object of a hit man. She's the daughter of a disgraced former NYPD detective who was accused of crookedness and took his own life. Now she's a West Coast wild child and thought to be in the rackets as well. Sanders then flies back bringing Hale in tow.

She's close to them however in her associates and it's up to the Saint to discover who's a San Francisco rackets boss and bring them to justice.

Sanders who in most films was the movie's biggest cad is a fine hero, a regular modern Robin Hood. Still people don't believe he's quite honest and he likes it that way.

If you like the books and the films, you'll enjoy this one.

George Sanders makes his first appearance as the Saint in this film and all I can think is: "Hey, It's Addison DeWitt, private eye!" Because this Saint is nothing but snide, more prone to shoot off a cutting remark than a gun. Did Sanders ever make a movie where you didn't get the feeling he was slumming? Where you didn't get the feeling it pained him to be surrounded by such fools? (Making one wonder, then, why the hell he married Zsa Zsa Gabor.) Playing opposite as the romantic interest is Wendy Barrie, who comes off as more hard-boiled than a two-hour egg. Then, of course, Barrie was a pretty tough broad, having been Bugsy Siegel's girl before Virginia "I'll put my mouth where the money is!" Hill came along. This was also the first of Barrie's three appearances in the Saint series, although she played a different character each time.

But what of the film itself? Well, there's not much to say--the plot is confusing the minor characters difficult to tell apart and the visuals not particularly interesting. The real enjoyment in this picture comes from Sander's deadly wit and Barrie's remarkable aura of toughness.