The Saint's Vacation

Hugh Sinclair is The Saint, Simon Templar, in "The Saint's Vacation," a 1941 film also starring Sally Gray, Cecil Parker and Arthur Macrae. Besides Roger Moore and Ian Ogilvy on television, the Saint has been played by Sinclair, Louis Hayward and George Sanders (that I've seen). I liked Hayward's smoothness, Sanders' turn of a phrase, and I like Sinclair's cool, casual, take it as it comes attitude. He doesn't have the dry wit of Sanders' Simon, but like Saints before him, nothing fazes him either. He also doesn't whistle the familiar "Saint" tune, which I kind of missed.

Now the Saint is veddy veddy British as the productions were moved over to the UK, and Simon is working with a friend (Arthur Macrae) who's afraid of his shadow. This time the plot concerns a highly sought after music box - where have we heard that before? And, as usual, people will kill to get their hands on it.

Sally Gray is pretty and energetic as a reporter who accompanies Simon as she tries to get a good story. Evidently she doesn't realize that if you like Sherlock Holmes and The Lady Vanishes, this variation on a theme is old stuff. Very pleasant film.

One of the better entries in a series that was starting to tail off. Sanders had left the part of the Saint to become "The Gay Falcon" for the same studio, RKO, and production was transferred to war-torn Britain. Unbelievably this film shows little signs of the conflict as it's a tale of a race across Europe (with train footage apparently dragged out of Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes") to solve the mystery of a strange music box. Hugh Sinclair is slightly wooden as Simon Templar, although he gets into his stride during the action sequences and promises to shape up well (actually his one sequel is slightly disappointing as he doesn't get the chance to display his athleticism in the same way again). Sally Gray, who popped up as the romantic interest in "The Saint in London" is reporter Mary Langdon, out to get a story whether the Saint wants her to or not -- she was easily the prettiest co-star of the series and could easily have outshone a dozen similar Hollywood actresses. Arthur Macrae is a fine comic Monty Hayward and Ealing Comedies regular Cecil Parker an excellent, hissable villain as Crown Prince Rudolph. Gordon McLeod makes the second of three appearances as Chief Inspector Teal, though sadly his is only a guest appearance right at the end of the film. Again, he is easily the best of the screen/TV Teals. The story is faithfully adapted (if shortened) from "Getaway", one of Saint creator Leslie Charteris's best books. Forget the Val Kilmer "Saint" film effort (which has nothing in common with Charteris's character, and doesn't even credit the author) and curl up and enjoy.

I have seen most of the Saint films and was expecting not to like this one which starred Hugh Sinclair. Why? Well, because the other one he made (THE SAINT MEETS THE TIGER) was a very dull little B-movie--one of the worst, if not the worst, in the series. Also, when I think of the Saint, I still think I prefer the extremely suave George Sanders--who made the role particularly enjoyable. However, here Sinclair seems more in his element and more importantly, he's got a very good script by the series creator, Leslie Charteris. Plus, and I hate to admit it, but Sinclair is actually better than Sanders in a way because he is a much more physical character--more likely to get in a fist fight or other manly pursuits.

The story itself is about a stolen puzzle box and naturally the Saint gets caught up in the affair. While the individual elements aren't always successful, the overall plot is very good and makes for a film that is actually better than some of the American-made versions--even the ones with Sanders.

The Saint courts media interest wherever he goes and today is no interest – even though Monty just wants a nice quiet holiday with him, with no mystery or adventure. Slipping onto the ship in disguise throws most of the journalists off Templar's trail but not the plucky and determined Mary Langdon, who follows him on his trip. But as Summer follows Spring, so adventure follows the Saint and it is not long before he finds himself involved in shady goings-on over the possession of what appears to be a perfectly ordinary music box.

As a fan of the Falcon series I decided to give other franchises a try and where better to start than the series that the original Falcon jumped out of – The Saint. In this entry the Saint gets into his usual scraps in the pursuit of a mystery box and the end result is a quite enjoyable little b-movie. The plot is straightforward but just about has enough action to make it worth seeing if you are into this sort of light entertainment (which I am). However those seeking a bit more substance will find this film lacking it but as long as you know what you are getting then it'll do the job.

With Saunders jumping ship to join another RKO franchise (The Falcon) the role falls to Sinclair and he takes to it with no great distinction. True his performance is fitting for a b-movie serial but I didn't find him very memorable at all. Macrae is better and made some of his scenes better – never a good thing for a sidekick from a lead's point of view. Parker makes a good villain and he is by far the most interesting person in the film – his chemistry with Sinclair is effective and the former helps the latter be better than in solo scenes. Gray is just too obvious a blonde starlet to really stand out from the crowd but she does well enough. The film makes reasonable use of the location despite some heavy foreign accents that are distracting – the train scenes are quite enjoyable and the film manages to avoid feeling like it is stuck on a soundstage (even if it mostly is).

Overall this is an OK film that will be enjoyed by viewers who like this sort of b-movie serial a la the Falcon etc. The plot is interesting enough even if it never really grabbed me; the acting helps and, although I didn't think Sinclair really managed to make the role his own, he is helped out by a great Parker and nice support from Macrae. Not anything special but a typical b-movie serial that can be enjoyed on that level.

Saint's Vacation, The (1941)

** (out of 4)

Seventh film in RKO's series has George Sanders being replaced by Hugh Sinclair. This time out The Saint is battling a man over a mysterious box, which contains some sort of secret code. This is a rather strange entry in the series as I found it to have one of the best stories but the production is so poor that this really kills anything positive in the film. What really kept getting under my skin was the incredibly bad editing, which really stands out to be among the worst I've ever seen. There's one scene where The Saint must fight two guys while his sidekick and a female reporter (Sally Gray) are watching. The way this thing is edited is so poorly done and the bad music selections really made me laugh when the scene was of course going for suspense. As for Sinclair, he really doesn't make a very good leading man. I wasn't too impressed with Sanders in the role but he was certainly more fitting than his replacement. I'm not sure if he should get all the blame for being so stiff because the entire film pretty much plays out that way. There's never any real energy built by the director and in the end the movie just comes off pretty bland.