Category: Saint movies

  • The Saint (1997, Phillip Noyce)

    The Saint is a delightful mess of a film. Director Noyce toggles between doing a Bond knock-off while a romantic adventure picture. Val Kilmer’s international, high-tech cat burglar falls for one of his marks, Elisabeth Shue’s genius scientist. Jonathan Hensleigh and Wesley Strick’s script, even when it puts Shue in distress, never actually treats her…

  • The Saint Strikes Back (1939, John Farrow)

    The Saint Strikes Back is George Sanders’s first Saint film. It’s strong, even though John Farrow might not be the right director for it. The script’s great, playing to Sanders’s strengths of being the charming cad, but Farrow’s close-ups are poorly conceived and some of Frank Redman’s lighting is questionable. Jack Hively, who went on…

  • The Saint’s Double Trouble (1940, Jack Hively)

    George Sanders can do no wrong in The Saint’s Double Trouble, so much so, he has the ability to smooth the film over. He’s such a joy to watch, the critical part of the brain shuts down. Eventually, as the film nears the conclusion, Sanders looses his control, letting judgments percolate to the surface. This…

  • The Saint in London (1939, John Paddy Carstairs)

    One of the unfortunate developments of television is the proliferation of hour-long mystery dramas. While these programs might be good, it means movies like The Saint in London don’t get made anymore. The film’s not episodic, with an abbreviated first act–George Sanders (playing the Saint for the first time) gets no introduction. But the first…

  • The Saint Takes Over (1940, Jack Hively)

    Speedily paced. The Saint Takes Over is somehow fast, running sixty-nine minutes, but quite full of content. It’s so full of content, in the first act, I was convinced George Sanders was somehow going to remain non-central to the picture, since so much time was being spent establishing the ground situation he finds himself in.…