Given director O’Connolly’s background in B-movies, he perhaps results in being more at ease with the low-budget requirements of this one (emanating from its TV origins): nevertheless, it effectively utilizes several European locations – including passing off Malta (even my hometown puts in a prominent appearance during a scuffle 20 minutes into the film!) as Palermo; incidentally, star Roger Moore would also come over here for the WWI adventure SHOUT AT THE DEVIL (1976) – incidentally, both films were made at a time when my country was still a British colony.
Anyway, the plot finds Simon Templar facing off with the Mafia – but, at the same time, aiding their cause by uncovering an imposter in their midst (at a rather precarious time for them, since they’re being assembled to elect a new Don). The accents throughout are fairly risible, though Ian Hendry is decent as a would-be mobster…but, then, Finlay Currie plays the dying Mafia head?! As was the case with THE FICTION-MAKERS (1968), The Saint is romanced and helped by a couple of girls – one of whom is Hendry’s moll and the other (played by lovely Rosemary Dexter) his niece. Despite her English-sounding name, the latter was actually Pakistani by birth and, curiously enough, most of her career was spent in Italian exploitation fare (her facial features looked familiar enough but, frankly, I had forgotten all about her appearance in Jess Franco’s MARQUIS DE SADE’S JUSTINE [1968] myself!).
Resolving itself into a number of confrontations and chases, the narrative obviously takes an altogether different route from its caper-type predecessor – and manages to be more involving by having the hero make a personal issue out of the case (hence the title). Even so, I have to admit that his characterization isn’t very clearly defined – certainly not in the way James Bond was (or would be for Moore when he took the role himself)…and it doesn’t help, either, that I haven’t watched the 1997 big-screen incarnation of Leslie Charteris’ creation directed by Phillip Noyce and starring Val Kilmer!
