Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Michael_Elliott Saint in London, The (1939) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Third film in RKO's series has George Sanders returning as The Saint. This time out The Saint travels to London where he gets involved with a counterfeiting ring and gets some help from a beautiful socialite (Sally Gray). This third film is a slight improvement over the second but I still wouldn't call the film very good or entertaining. Sanders seems more comfortable in his role but I still think he's rather miscast. I'm really not sure what issues I'm having with him because I thought he was much better in the similar The Falcon series, which would start up a few years after this movie. The film has a little bit more action, which keeps the film moving better and it also has some rather nice humor. It's strange that a mystery film would leave the viewer with no mystery to figure out because we meet the bad guys early in the movie so there's no guessing for us to do. Instead, a lot of the film has childish flirting between Sanders and Gray. Gray comes across very good in the film and actually manages to steal it from the classic Sanders. The bad guys are all rather stiff, which also doesn't help things. In the end, the 72-minute running time was just a tad bit too much for me as the film eventually ran out of gas. The IMDb lists an alternate running time of 79-minutes and there does appear to be some editing during the film and that includes a scene where Gray is held hostage by the bad guys.

whpratt1 Enjoyed this great Classic 1939 film in black and white and enjoying the very young George Sanders as Simon Templar/The Saint who is investigating a counterfeit ring of crooks in London and is working with Scotland Yard without the local London police knowing just what he is doing. Sally Grey, (Penelope,'Penny' Baker) is a sweet sexy looking blonde who never seems to want to leave Simon Templar and follows him everywhere he goes no matter where it is and how dangerous it might turn out to be. Simon Templar hires a pickpocket goon to become his Valet named Dugan who sure has a definite New York accent with all his strong "R's" being pronounced through out the picture. If you are a big fan of George Sanders, this film you will definitely enjoy viewing.

MartinHafer Of all the B-movie detective series made in the 30s and 40s, The Saint ranks around the middle for quality. While not nearly as fun as the Charlie Chan or Sherlock Holmes films of the time, they still are well-polished and fun--mostly thanks to the excellent screen presence of George Sanders as the title character. He's just so witty, debonair and cool that it's a pleasure to watch him gracefully walk though this pedestrian film. The actual plot involving an attempt on the life of a foreign national in order to facilitate a counterfeiting scheme is only okay--not bad, but not all that interesting. And the supporting characters aren't all that compelling, either. However, considering the modest pretensions of this RKO serial, I think overall it did a good job of delivering the goods.

bob the moo Back in his native London after his American adventures, Simon Templar (aka The Saint) is drawn into a mystery on the tip-off of a friend in the British Secret Service. The Saint investigates one Bruno Lang, apparently a member of polite society but also up to his neck in a plot involving the printing and illegal distribution of millions of pounds worth of foreign currency. The Saint investigates and finds himself drawn into a complex and dangerous affair with few people to trust outside of his street-smart valet Dugan, a former guest of Sing-Sing Prison.Having just watched the much better Saint in New York I must confess that I was only disappointed by the fact that The Saint films immediately stepped back from the dark, cruel edge of the original and became just another b-movie series with a suave character solving crimes – in fact the presence of Sanders in the title role made it even harder to tell it apart from the Falcon series (which is essentially an extension of The Saint after RKO fell out with Charteris). The plot here is so-so and is the first of the film's failings. Of course I say failings suggesting that it is a major problem which of course, as a b-movie, it isn't really. The story is run-of-the-mill but still just about does enough to hold the interest without doing much special or out of the ordinary.Sanders may well do suave really well but I couldn't help notice how very dull he was compared to the much more interesting turn from Louis Hayward. That said he does well enough for fans of the series and he does play the smooth matinée idol pretty well, although I wish he had given the Saint at least a little bit of an edge to show his criminal roots. The support cast are mostly reasonably good, or at least up to the standard of the series. Burns is good in the reoccurring role (in this series and The Falcon) of wise-cracking sidekick; McLeod is OK as Teal while Oscar, Abbott and a few others make good bad guys. Gray is reasonably good as the love interest.Overall a solid entry in the series that will please fans but do little to please others. Acting, plotting and directing are all squarely in b-movie territory and none of them ever threaten to break out of the genre to produce something more memorable – a shame considering the promise shown in the very first film in the series.