Vacaciones de El Santo

All the Saint wants to do is take a little trip abroad…but the gang of reporters tracking him down to the pier just won't believe he's not on a case. Among those reporters is Mary Langdon (Sally Gray), the only girl reporter in the bunch, determined to catch a big scoop to launch her career.

Along with his friend Monty, Simon tries to convince Mary he's on vacation, but suddenly things start to happen all at once: a mysterious parking lot meeting, a pursuit by automobile, a foot chase through the woods, a fight in a darkened clearing in which even our heroine assists, stomping a prone tough guy's wrist and taking away his knife just in time….

Simon Templar may be on vacation, but a case certainly finds him. Gradually he learns that all the to-do concerns a small, mysterious package that multiple parties seek (and Templar soon has).

Gray and Sinclair work well together, and exchange some enjoyably clever repartee. (Mary: "I suppose you realize we stand an excellent chance of being sent to jail for a couple of years." Simon: "Well, you can't expect to have your fun for nothing, can you.")

The picture really gets interesting when veteran English actor Cecil Parker comes on the scene as villain Rudolph Hauser, a spy who—like everyone else—badly wants that little box. Parker and Sinclair are excellent together—two experienced operators who maintain an exceedingly polite surface while playing a deadly game.

Hugh Sinclair is actually a quite pleasing Simon Templar—he captures the character's polished and polite exterior as well as the cool alertness and ready athleticism lurking just beneath. The picture's strong cast and a plot that presents a few surprises help to make this a very entertaining series entry. Only the resolution seems a bit weak…but that may be because the buildup was so good.

Best dialog exchange: In a highly tense moment, Templar bursts into Hauser's living room to find the owner ready to confront and presumably trap him. Templar plays it suave: "You don't mind me….butting in like this?" To which the reply is equally civil: "Oh, on the contrary, I…I'm always pleased to see you."

I hadn't seen this one for nearly 20 years until tonight on cable, and an excellent watch it was at 58 minutes long. Necessarily then a fast paced thriller, the story lifted straight off The Lady Vanishes with Cecil Parker in both but having more immoral fibre in this as the Nazi. At least, I think he was on the Nazis side - nothing is made clear until the very end when this McGuffin is breezily explained by Felix Aylmer. Dressed to Kill provided another variant of this plot 5 years later for Holmes and Watson.

Basically everyone's after a mysterious box and prepared to kill for it. In one scene Parker coldly shoots dead two unarmed train guards for hindering him in his quest, even though we the audience know the whole episode was a deliberate false trail laid by (the apparently uncaring) Templar to throw the baddies off his track.

All it really needed was Charters and Caldicott in one of the foreign hotels arguing about cricket to complete the similarity to TLV. However, the former packed in some rather poor model shots for buildings etc whereas in TSV we're treated to some splendid Gothic Bavarian sets, of hotels, castles and woodland. I wonder what period film they were used for first? With all faults, still a nice little film.

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.

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.

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.