''The Saint in London'' is a 1939 British crime film, the third of eight films in RKO's
film series A film series or movie series (also referred to as a film franchise or movie franchise) is a collection of related films in succession that share the same fictional universe, or are marketed as a series.
This article explains what film series are ...
featuring the adventures of
Simon Templar
''The Saint'' is the nickname of the fictional character Simon Templar, featured in a series of novels and short stories by Leslie Charteris published between 1928 and 1963. After that date, other authors collaborated with Charteris on books un ...
, alias "The Saint".
It stars
George Sanders
George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was a British actor and singer whose career spanned over 40 years. His heavy, upper-class English accent and smooth, bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous chara ...
as Templar and was produced by
William Sistrom
William "Billy" Sistrom (19 March 1884 – March 1972) was an English film producer who worked in the United States.
Biography
Sistrom was born in Lincolnshire, England. He began work with Universal Pictures. Later he joined RKO Pictures in 1 ...
.
John Paddy Carstairs
John Paddy Carstairs (born John Keys; 11 May 1910, in London – 12 December 1970, in London) was a British film director (1933–62) and television director (1962–64), usually of light-hearted subject matter. He was also a comic novelist and ...
directed. Lynn Root and Frank Fenton wrote the screenplay based on
Leslie Charteris
Leslie Charteris (born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, 12 May 1907 – 15 April 1993), was a British-Chinese author of adventure fiction, as well as a screenwriter.The Holy Terror'', published in the US as ''The Saint vs. Scotland Yard''.
Plot
Returning to London, Simon Templar, alias "the Saint," meets and hires a reformed ex-con named Dugan while rendezvousing with Sir Richard Blake, a friend of his in British Intelligence, who recruits him to look into a (as it would turn out) suspected spy named Bruno Lang. At a party that weekend, he tails Lang to his home after meeting a beautiful, adventurous young woman named Penny Parker, who follows him after realizing who he is having been fascinated by his exploits. She helps him escape after he steals evidence against Lang from his safe.
As they flee back to London, they rescue a terrified and tortured French diplomat who had been abducted by Lang and his henchmen. Lang informs his co-conspirators of Templar's interference. Leaving Penny in Dugan's care, Templar takes the diplomat, Count Duni, to an inn and has him tended to. He reveals that his country sent him to supervise the printing of new currency and that he had been forced to authorize the secret printing of over a million pounds of it, which Lang and his partners mean to flee the country with.
Templar hands over the document he stole from Lang to Blake, meanwhile his home is visited by Kussella, another of Lang's subordinates, who Penny tails. Templar's actions have drawn the attention of his friendly rival from Scotland Yard, Inspector Teal, who he finds waiting for him when he returns home. After he leaves, Penny telephones and tells where she has tailed Kussella to, before he captures her and tells Templar to come to him alone. Rescuing her with Dugan's help, they return to the inn to find Duni murdered and Templar framed by an unknown party. Teal, however, is aware of the frame and lets Templar escape to help him pursue the true killers.
Updated by the inn-keeper that Duni had contacted a man named Stengler at his embassy shortly before he was murdered, Templar visits him while posing as Teal and tricks him into lying about Duni and unknowingly revealing his involvement with Lang, before having him trailed by Dugan, who later informs Templar and Penny that he has tailed Stengler to Lang's house and has them at gunpoint.
Before Templar and Penny can arrive, Kussella and Lang's remaining henchman arrive and knock Dugan out. When they arrive, Lang has Penny tied up and gives Templar an hour to return the evidence he stole in exchange for her and Dugan's safety. Templar disarms Lang with throwing knife and knocks him out, before rescuing Penny and Dugan. Kussella is fatally shot by mistake by one of his co-conspirators, and Templar, Dugan and Penny flee with the stolen money and Lang, leaving the latter's remaining subordinates to be caught by Teal, who has been trailing Templar.
Back at Scotland Yard, where Teal brings Stengler while pretending not to suspect him of wrongdoing, they find Templar and the others waiting in Teal's office with Blake. Teal has Lang and Stengler arrested for espionage and murder following Blake's explanation about enlisting Templar to help expose them, and Templar leaves to take Penny home before he ends up in love and married.
Cast
*
George Sanders
George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was a British actor and singer whose career spanned over 40 years. His heavy, upper-class English accent and smooth, bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous chara ...
Henry Oscar
Henry Wale (14 July 1891 – 28 December 1969), known professionally as Henry Oscar, was an English stage and film actor. He changed his name and began acting in 1911, having studied under Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Dram ...
as Bruno Lang
*
Athene Seyler
Athene Seyler, CBE (31 May 188912 September 1990) was an English actress.
Early life
She was born in Hackney, London; her German-born grandparents moved to the United Kingdom, where her grandfather Philip Seyler was a merchant in London. Ath ...
as Mrs. Buckley
*
John Abbott
Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott (March 12, 1821 – October 30, 1893) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the third prime minister of Canada from 1891 to 1892. He held office as the leader of the Conservative Party.
Abbo ...
as Count Stephen Duni
*
Ralph Truman
Ralph du Vergier Truman (7 May 1900 – 15 October 1977) was an English actor, usually cast as either a villain or an authority figure. He possessed a distinguished speaking voice. He was born in London, England.
Truman originally studied at t ...
Carl Jaffe
Carl Jaffe (21 March 1902 – 12 April 1974) was a German actor. Jaffe trained on the stage in his native Hamburg, Kassel and Wiesbaden before moving to Berlin, where his career began to develop.
In 1933 Jaffe changed his stage name to Fra ...
as Stengler
*
Norah Howard
Norah Howard (12 December 1900 - 2 May 1968) was a British actress of stage and screen.
Biography
She was born as Norah Lillian Emily Smeed on 12 December 1900, in Fulham, London, England, her father was Alfred Howard Smeed. She changed her sta ...
The film was shot in London. Sanders arrived there in March 1939.
Notes
The film made a profit of $140,000.Richard Jewell & Vernon Harbin, ''The RKO Story''. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 1982. p132 According to Saint historian
Burl Barer
Burl Barer (born 1947 in Walla Walla, Washington) is an American author, literary historian and radio host. He is best known for his writings about the character Simon Templar.
Career
Fiction
''The Saint''
''The Saint: A Complete History in ...
, Charteris considered ''The Saint in London'' to be the best of the RKO film series. He admired director Carstairs' work enough to dedicate the book '' The Saint in the Sun'' to him; Carstairs is also the only person to direct not only RKO Saint films, but also two episodes of the 1962–69 series '' The Saint''.
References
* Burl Barer, ''The Saint: A Complete History in Print, Radio, Film and Television 1928–1992''. Jefferson, N.C.: MacFarland, 2003 (originally published in 1992).