Le Saint face au Tigre

When a man is killed on his doorstep, Simon Templar (Hugh Sinclair) tries to find out the reason in "The Saint Meets the Tiger," a 1943 film also starring Gordon McLeod, Jean Gillie and Wylie Watson. In this episode, The Saint has a butler (Wylie Watson) who regrets not taking a job in Chicago so he could work with mobsters; a death on the doorstep is what he's been waiting for. The man utters a few words before he dies, which lead Simon and his butler to a small town. There they meet a young woman, Pat (Gille), who becomes part of the "team" trying to uncover the identity of "The Tiger" and reveal a scam involving gold and an old mine.

The scenes on board ship were good, with the butler and Pat working together knocking people out and not realizing Simon was on board, too, and Simon not knowing they were on board. The two would run across a body and accuse the other of knocking him out. Inspector Teal shows up posing as a professor.

This is pleasant enough, though Sanders brought a certain panache to the role of The Saint that is missed here. And why, when the series was imported to Britain, wasn't the Saint's whistle brought along with him?

Ultra lightweight movie almost floats away. Jean Gillie is fine as Pat Holm (borrowed from the very early Saint novels), but Hugh Sinclair suffers compared to the more magnetic George Sanders and lacks the vocal charm of Vincent Price's radio Saint. One of the appealing things about the Simon Templar character was the suspicion that he was only on the side of the good guys for as long as it would prove profitable. None of this comes through in this Republic effort, though the production values are reasonably high.

Jean Gillie (sp?) makes this movie. She's too cute for words with her gung ho attitude. She's not really believable IMO. She's just too calm in the face of danger given her background, but it's fiction after all, why not have a really strong female character to match up with the Saint.

A lot of the supporting cast is pretty dull

George Sanders is better as the Saint IMO. Hugh does OK - he's charming and competent enough

The plot is weak like most Saint movies. I don't care really as long as the dialog entertains, and it does.

I admit to having a real love for the early Saint movies for their totally relaxing experience - the violence is comic when there is violence, and you always just assume the Saint will manage to come out alive. Even though the violence is comic, the body count is high in this movie. Heck, I can't even remember how many people get killed (or one assumes their wounds are fatal.)

I would say, if you liked the Sanders Saint movie, this one might appeal to you. If you like comic-mysteries from this era and don't mind weak plots you will like this. I think most people just have to like Jean Gillie here, what's to not like?

THE SAINT MEETS THE TIGER is the second film RKO made in Britain with a British cast with Hugh Sinclair in the title-role. The plot is a familiar one: the Saint (Hugh Sinclair) travels down to Cornwall to uncover a smuggling plot involving in which one million pounds of gold will leave the country. What makes this thriller worth watching, however, is its incidental pleasures: although much of it is shot in the studio, with quite obviously phony backgrounds, there are occasional sequences shot on location in Cornwall, where we get an authentic impression of what British seaside life was like during the middle of World War II. There are some notable performances from Wylie Watson as Horace, the Saint's faithful butler with a penchant for listening to gangster thrillers on the radio. When he is drawn into the action he takes every opportunity to assume the tough-guy role, pointing his loaded pistol at the villains. The eponymous Tiger/ Tidemarsh (Clifford Evans) comes across as a very clever mastermind - on the one hand he is more than willing to look after Pat Holm (Jean Gillie) and ensure that she comes to no harm; on the other hand he shows his true nature while trying to deal with his gang. The members of said gang are cleverly delineated, ranging from crooked financier Lionel Bentley (Dennis Arundell), whose facial expressions seldom change, even when he is holding the Saint at gunpoint; to Bittle (Charles Victor), a tough-guy with an accent combining South African clipped vowels and a Chicago twang. Needless to say they are outwitted at the end, leaving the Saint to walk off into the sunset with Pat on his arm, but one has to admire their ambition.

Saint Meets the Tiger, The (1941)

** (out of 4)

Eighth and final film of the original series switched from RKO over to Republic. This time out The Saint (Hugh Sinclair) gets involved with a gang of gold thieves who will stop at nothing to keep their riches. This entry is certainly better made than the previous film but in the end it still doesn't work too well. Once again, we've got a pretty interesting story to follow but sadly there's really no excitement and never any sense of real danger going on. This film also has a lot more comic relief than previous entries but, again, none of it really comes off too well. I think Sinclair is a lot better here than he was in the previous film as he manages to make the best scenes in the movie. The supporting cast are all pretty forgettable, which is another downside to this series as they never really had any good character actors working in them. Having now seen all of the films in the series I must say that overall this was the least interesting of them all. I think Holmes, Chan, Boston Blackie, The Falcon and the Crime Doctor all were better series and this one here, to me, ranks at the bottom. I know this series has a strong following but it just didn't cut it for me.