Le Saint mène la danse

A French Saint film starring Felix Marten as Simon Templar. The film begins with a gangster being chased on foot by the police. As he tries to make his getaway he is struck by a passerby and falls. The gangster is then shot dead by the police.

Fast forward to a year later and the passerby who helped the police kill the gangster has received threatening letters. The passerby it turns out is a very wealthy man who is afraid that a friend of the gangster has marked him for death. The wealthy man then contacts Templar, who he wants to hire to protect him from an unknown assassin. The Saint is sceptical but agrees to take the job for a hefty fee.

The film has a breezy quality, like the German Edgar Wallace films. It's fun and stylish. The print I saw was the English dubbed version and ran just over 80 minutes. Also The Saint's name was changed from Templar to Thompson.

"This overlooked gem is a combo horror film and crime film, filled with atmospheric scenes in and around an eerie country mansion and a spooky, overgrown cemetery. Unknown killers threaten a playboy millionaire with death. A posh detective comes to his lonely country estate to protect him. Within the mansion's walls are many suspicious characters, including three vampish bomb-shells (one resembles Barbara Steele), along with two odd servants: one tall, dark and gruesome, the other a small Peter Lorre-type. Terrifying things soon happen. The sinister shadow of an unknown killer is seen prowling the grounds in the black of the night. A guard dog is found dead - poisoned. The chauffeur is found, his head jammed into the blades of a car's cooling fan-the motor still running! Things finally end up in a local graveyard where our hero is sealed up in a tomb! A neat, twist ending finishes off this fine, obscure Euro-thriller. Fairly similar to a 1960s Edgar Wallace chiller"