Le Saint face au Tigre

The eighth and final Saint film from RKO. Well, technically it was released here by Republic but it was produced by RKO two years earlier and sat on the shelf while the studio worked out its legal issues with Saint creator Leslie Charteris. It's also the worst movie of the series, although still perfectly watchable. The plot has the Saint up against a villain called the Tiger. That's pretty much all you need to know to realize this isn't going to be much more than a generic programmer. Returning as the Saint is charmless Hugh Sinclair. His comic relief sidekick this time is valet Horace, played by Wylie Watson. He's an improvement over the last sidekick but not by much. Pretty Jean Gillie is the would-be love interest Pat Holmes. Apparently this character was a bigger deal in the Saint books but is just now making an appearance in this series. Gillie does a fine job and arguably has the most personality of anyone in the cast. But her banter and romance with the dull Sinclair is never very believable or interesting. Everything is very 1940s British, staid and mannered and leisurely paced. The story isn't particularly strong but they shove enough humor and action in to keep it your interest.

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.

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" was the first of the Saint books, but appeared rather late in the series of movies. The Saint is following the trail of a million pounds sterling of gold stolen from a Bristol bank by a gang headed by "the Tiger", a criminal mastermind. Hugh Sinclair, who doesn't much look the part initially, grows on you as the Saint with his witty and confident performance. His sidekick, Horace, has been transformed from a rough retired seaman to a dapper butler. The story isn't, of course, exactly the plot of the book, but it is close enough to give you fond reminiscences of the book. The cast is very similar in most respects to the main characters in the book. One of the main differences is that the identity of the Tiger is revealed quite early in the movie, and that revelation is virtually the last event in the book.

Some of the action scenes are a bit simplistic, to the point of virtually being bungled. Yet the charm of the dialog and the heroes overcomes those deficiencies. If you like these classic old mysteries, you can do a lot worse than "The Saint Meets the Tiger".

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.