The Saint's Vacation (1941)

George Sanders is the suave, sophisticated but also slightly dubious The Saint. Sanders jumped ship to become The Falcon and film series moved to be shot on location in Britain. Its fast paced, low budget B picture with cheap production values.Hugh Sinclair takes over as The Saint but he has none of the charisma or screen presence of Sanders and at some parts of the film he gets lost amongst other similar looking actors in the film. There is a propaganda element in this film with dastardly Nazis types and the plot is very much borrowed from The Lady Vanishes, although its based on an original Charteris story.Its a race across Europe on a train where everyone is looking for a strange music box. British film stalwart Cecil Parker is the villain as Prince Rudolph. There are some nice action sequences with fist fights and shooting scenes, elements of comedy and nice attractive leading ladies. Sinclair is bland and a little dull. We have no idea what is so important about the box though.

The extraordinary thing about director Leslie Fenton's "The Saint's Vacation" is that RKO Studio produced this black & white thriller in England during World War II. For whatever reason, however, the filmmakers made no mention of the war. Apart from the use of exterior stock footage, such as the train hurtling along the countryside, RKO filmed "The Saint's Vacation" entirely on interior sound stages, even the outdoor scenes. Later, the characters gather at Dover on the pier and much later on they discuss a Paris stopover during a cross-continental trip. Obviously, neither an excursion to Paris nor catching a ship at Dover would have been possible under wartime conditions. Mind you, by this time, Nazi troops had occupied Paris, and British subjects would never have been permitted to sail in hostile waters without a Royal Navy escort. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the British had been battling Hitler since 1939, RKO Studio lets the action play out with no references to the war. In the final scene, one character does mention the War Office, but he doesn't make reference to the war. Most likely, postwar audiences that have watched "The Saint's Vacation" probably thought it was filmed either before the war or after it, not during the darkest hours before the war turned in the favor of the Allies in 1942. Another interesting thing about this modest "Saint" film is that author Leslie Charteris penned the screenplay from his original novel "Getaway" with "Sanders of the River" scenarist Jeffrey Dell.Monte Hayward (Arthur Macrae of "Silver Blaze") panics at the last minute as his butler and he pack his luggage for a trip abroad. Not only is Monte in a lather because his close friend Simon Templar, (Hugh Sinclair of "The Saint Meets the Tiger"), a.k.a., 'The Saint,' hasn't arrived for their 11:30 AM departure, but also because nosy journalists are bugging Monte about the whereabouts of the Saint. .Indeed, the Saint surprises Monte by sneaking in through the fire escape to avoid the journalists staking out Monte's front door. Interestingly, RKO conceived the series as a man who operates on the fringes of the law. The Saint has a shady reputation, but British authorities appear to have granted our hero some kind of dispensation, perhaps because of the war. Detectives in the George Sanders' "Saint" movies were always trying to lock him up. Anyway, Monte is adamant that Simon and he enjoy a quiet, uneventful vacation. "Remember, we're going away on holiday. We're not going to get mixed up in anything." Simon agrees, but they decide to go their separate ways until they meet on the ship so that they have thrown the news hounds off their trail.Eventually, to the chagrin of the press, the Saint avoids the journalists and sneaks aboard the ship wearing a fake mustache and beard. He removes both mustache and beard as they watch from the pier. One reporter refuses to concede defeat so readily. "Gazette" writer Mary Langdon (Sally Gray of "Dangerous Moonlight") takes a plane to catch the Saint. Again, during wartime, she couldn't hire a plane on such short notice and brave the Luftwaffe infested skies over Europe. She catches up with the Saint in Switzerland at a hotel. "She thinks you're up to something," vigilant Monte warns the Saint about Mary. She brightens visibly when she meets Simon in the hotel. Mary explains, "So much depends on this. If I don't get a story, I'm through." Once again, the comings and goings of the Saint supersede anything about the war. "Don't you think you could rake up a little trouble somehow," Mary pleads. "I don't mean anything drastic, of course." No sooner has Mary uttered these words than the Saint stumbles upon a mysterious woman in black, Valerie (Leueen MacGrath of "Pygmalion"), who is mixed up with a man named Gregory. After she rebuffs the Saint, Valerie meets with Gregory (John Warwick of "The Desperate Man") and bundles off into the night in a hired car. Not long after, Gregory is pursued by the villain, Rudolf Hauser (Cecil Parker of "The Ladykillers"), who wants something that Gregory has. Later, we learn Gregory possesses a small music box concealed in a larger wooden cigar box. The Saint and Rudolf play a game of cat and mouse over this mysterious little box. At one point, the Saint sneaks into Rudolf's mountainside castle in Switzerland by riding on the rear bumper of Rudolf's car. Rudolf's last name implies Teutonic origins, but no mention is ever made about his ancestry or nationality and neither play a role in the story. At one point, Rudolf convinces the Swiss authorities to arrest the Saint and imprison him, but the Saint makes a deal for his freedom with Rudolf."The Saint's Vacation" boasts several fistfights and shoot-outs, with one of them in a British train as Rudolf steals Gregory's music box from Royal Mail bags. Unfortunately, the Saint's life is never in jeopardy, and neither the Swiss authorities nor the villains pose much of a threat to Templar. The mystery about the contents of the music box is solved in the last scene. The revelation that the metal cylinder in the music box contains a blueprint of the electric circuit for 'the best sound detector in the world' is at best bland. Tall, lanky, urbane Hugh Sinclair with his clipped mustache qualifies as a passable Saint. He is rather handy with a revolver and he knows out to get himself out of close scrapes. He isn't as suave as either George Sanders or Tom Conway in the pre-war "Saint" sagas or the postwar "Saint" escapades. Arthur Macrae is good at acting flustered throughout the twists and turns of the plot. Sally Gray and Leueen MacGrath are pretty distractions, and Cecil Parker is ideally suited as the gruff villain Rudolf. Mary replies that the Saint may have to marry Valerie. Altogether, the derogatory term potboiler pretty much sums up this lukewarm RKO production.

I have seen most of the Saint films and was expecting not to like this one which starred Hugh Sinclair. Why? Well, because the other one he made (THE SAINT MEETS THE TIGER) was a very dull little B-movie--one of the worst, if not the worst, in the series. Also, when I think of the Saint, I still think I prefer the extremely suave George Sanders--who made the role particularly enjoyable. However, here Sinclair seems more in his element and more importantly, he's got a very good script by the series creator, Leslie Charteris. Plus, and I hate to admit it, but Sinclair is actually better than Sanders in a way because he is a much more physical character--more likely to get in a fist fight or other manly pursuits.The story itself is about a stolen puzzle box and naturally the Saint gets caught up in the affair. While the individual elements aren't always successful, the overall plot is very good and makes for a film that is actually better than some of the American-made versions--even the ones with Sanders.

The Saint courts media interest wherever he goes and today is no interest – even though Monty just wants a nice quiet holiday with him, with no mystery or adventure. Slipping onto the ship in disguise throws most of the journalists off Templar's trail but not the plucky and determined Mary Langdon, who follows him on his trip. But as Summer follows Spring, so adventure follows the Saint and it is not long before he finds himself involved in shady goings-on over the possession of what appears to be a perfectly ordinary music box.As a fan of the Falcon series I decided to give other franchises a try and where better to start than the series that the original Falcon jumped out of – The Saint. In this entry the Saint gets into his usual scraps in the pursuit of a mystery box and the end result is a quite enjoyable little b-movie. The plot is straightforward but just about has enough action to make it worth seeing if you are into this sort of light entertainment (which I am). However those seeking a bit more substance will find this film lacking it but as long as you know what you are getting then it'll do the job.With Saunders jumping ship to join another RKO franchise (The Falcon) the role falls to Sinclair and he takes to it with no great distinction. True his performance is fitting for a b-movie serial but I didn't find him very memorable at all. Macrae is better and made some of his scenes better – never a good thing for a sidekick from a lead's point of view. Parker makes a good villain and he is by far the most interesting person in the film – his chemistry with Sinclair is effective and the former helps the latter be better than in solo scenes. Gray is just too obvious a blonde starlet to really stand out from the crowd but she does well enough. The film makes reasonable use of the location despite some heavy foreign accents that are distracting – the train scenes are quite enjoyable and the film manages to avoid feeling like it is stuck on a soundstage (even if it mostly is).Overall this is an OK film that will be enjoyed by viewers who like this sort of b-movie serial a la the Falcon etc. The plot is interesting enough even if it never really grabbed me; the acting helps and, although I didn't think Sinclair really managed to make the role his own, he is helped out by a great Parker and nice support from Macrae. Not anything special but a typical b-movie serial that can be enjoyed on that level.