utgard14 The second movie in RKO's The Saint series is the first to star the inimitable George Sanders. Here we have Simon Templar, aka the Saint, helping a woman who turned to crime after her policeman father was disgraced and committed suicide. While Louis Hayward was a tough and gritty Saint in the first film, George Sanders is all style and class. He's charming, witty, urbane, and impossible to dislike. Jonathan Hale plays Templar's police inspector friend who finds himself torn between trusting Simon and doing his duty. He also provides much of the film's humor. Wendy Barrie plays the embittered woman Templar helps. The rest of the cast includes Neil Hamilton, Jerome Cowan, Edward Gargan, and the great Barry Fitzgerald. John 'father of Mia' Farrow's direction is very good, especially his use of attractive close-ups. Nice score from Roy Webb. It's a great B movie with good characters and a brisk pace. Sanders is undeniably fun to watch in one of his best roles. If you like old detective movies I can't imagine you not liking this one.

Spikeopath George Sanders steps into the shoes of Simon Templar for the first time and beds himself in for a further four movies. The Saint Strikes Back is a complex little tale that takes The Saint to San Francisco and pitches him against a supposed female mob boss. John Twist's screenplay is tailor made for Sanders, ensuring he gets to play up the caddish rogue act with a tongue as sharp as a serpent. It's this aspect that lifts the film above average, the blend of comedy and mystery is deftly handled by Sanders. Support is good from Wendy Barrie, Jonathan Hale, Jerome Cowan and Barry Fitzgerald, while director John Farrow, without adding any stylish flourish, at least keeps the picture nice and brisk. 6/10

bkoganbing George Sanders made his debut as Leslie Charteris's international man of mystery Simon Templar, AKA The Saint in this film, The Saint Strikes Back. For all the rumors about his crooked ways Sanders is more often helping the local authorities than not, especially if it's doggedly honest Inspector Fernack of the NYPD homicide squad resolutely played as always by Jonanthan Hale. One gets jet lagged now with the time zone changes and the jet air speeds with coast to coast flights. But Sanders had to have the worst case of it film history as he flies from San Francisco to New York after saving Wendy Barrie from being the object of a hit man. She's the daughter of a disgraced former NYPD detective who was accused of crookedness and took his own life. Now she's a West Coast wild child and thought to be in the rackets as well. Sanders then flies back bringing Hale in tow.She's close to them however in her associates and it's up to the Saint to discover who's a San Francisco rackets boss and bring them to justice.Sanders who in most films was the movie's biggest cad is a fine hero, a regular modern Robin Hood. Still people don't believe he's quite honest and he likes it that way. If you like the books and the films, you'll enjoy this one.

Henry Kujawa After Roger Moore, this was my very first SAINT film with George Sanders. Over the years, he's become one of my favorite actors, and there's quite a few other decent actors in this film. However, this gets my vote for the WORST Saint film ever made-- and let me tell you why.I sat thru this thing at least 3 times and could not make heads or tails of the plot at all. And then, not long after seeing Louis Hayward in THE SAINT IN NEW YORK, I started reading Leslie Chartis' books. Imagine my surprise and shock when I got to "ANGELS OF DOOM", on which this is VERY loosely based, and not only was it was straight-forward, easy to understand, exciting, entertaining and in places downright hilarious, it also became my favorite novel of all time. It also "explained" to me exactly what was WRONG with this movie!!!They took a story that by rights should have been done as a 3-hour film (2 at the absolute minimum) and crammed it into just about 60 minutes. Is it any wonder it makes almost no sense at all? Never mind that they also decided to set it in the WRONG country (San Francisco instead of London), they gutted the plot so much that in order to get even the basics across, about 95% of the film is just people standing around talk talk talking. So the plot structure is awful, the directing is appallingly bad, and half the acting in the film is stiff and lifeless, even from normally very talented actors. And then of course there's George Sanders, who's COMPLETELY miscast as Simon Templar. I never even really understood the whole aura of "The Saint" until I saw Louis Hayward in action; to date, NOBODY else has ever brought the character to accurate life before (NOT EVEN Roger Moore!! --who usually plays it too SERIOUS, which is mind-boggling when you consider he never took James Bond seriously). The dialog Templar spouts in much of this film would be impossible for ANY actor to deliver credibly, EXCEPT for Louis Hayward, and I doubt even he could have made the story in this one fly. Maybe it wasn't just RKO's low low budget that caused him to depart after only one picture-- maybe he read the script, too.In all fairness, and despite himself, the next 4 SAINT films all had the dialog tailored specifically to fit Sanders' personality. How else could he have done such an INCREDIBLE job in THE SAINT IN London, or THE SAINT TAKES OVER (the latter of which, an "original" story, is actually a thinly-disguised-- and BETTER-told-- remake of THIS mess! --and with the same 3 actors in the leads!).Half the actors in this I've seen in other "B" movies from this period, and most of them do far better jobs elsewhere. Truthfully, the only one who comes off unscathed is Jonathan Hale, and you can't help but feel sorry for his Inspector Fernack, for the dizzying way Templar leads him on a confused merry chase, on his way to becoming a "hero" at the end.As if everything else wasn't so bad, at the end of the film, the "big reveal" as to the true identity of the main villain ALSO is told entirely thru confused dialog, and we find that the baddie got KILLED-- off-screen! I just watched this again today, and the whole time, I wanted to throttle the person who wrote the screenplay! It's no wonder after 6 RKO films, series creator Leslie Charteris PULLED the plug and took back the rights. Ironically, RKO distributed the 2 British-made films that followed, and simultaneously did THE FALCON series, initially also with Sanders, which was based on a novel that was the subject of a plagiarism lawsuit brought against it by Leslie Charteris! I guess that didn't bother RKO any...Finally, allow me to recommend much better Simon Templar films...THE SAINT IN NEW YORK THE SAINT IN London THE SAINT TAKES OVER THE SAINT'S VACATION