The Saint in Palm Springs *** (1941, George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Jonathan Hale, Paul Guilfoyle, Linda Hayes) – Classic Movie Review 3225

For the sixth crime mystery thriller adventure in RKO Pictures’ the Saint series, George Sanders makes his fifth and final appearance as the modern-day Robin Hood-inspired anti-hero Simon Templar. This time The Saint is sent to the Californian spa at a Palm Springs hotel, where he plays tennis and flirts, while coolly dealing with the gang trying to snatch valuable rare stamps from him.

Three murders and several attempts on the Saint’s life help to make this a satisfyingly complicated, suspenseful, pleasurable swansong, with Jonathan Hale back also in his final appearance as the NYPD police inspector Henry Fernack. Wendy Barrie makes her third and final Saint appearance, once again playing a different character, and Paul Guilfoyle reprises his role of Clarence Pearly Gates from the previous film, The Saint Takes Over.

Also in the cast are Linda Hayes, Ferris Taylor, Harry Shannon, Eddie Dunn, Richard Crane and Charles Quigley.

It is based on a screen story by the Saint creator Leslie Charteris but screen-writer Jerry Cady made many changes to his concept were made. Charteris later turned his version of the film story into the novella Palm Springs, in his collection The Saint Goes West.

The five Sanders films were all successful, this one making a profit of $90,000. But now Sanders left to join another RKO series, The Falcon, and was replaced by Hugh Sinclair in the two remaining RKO Saint films – The Saint’s Vacation and The Saint Meets the Tiger. A ninth film, The Saint’s Return (known as The Saint’s Girl Friday in the US) from 1953, with Louis Hayward returning as The Saint, was produced by British Hammer Film Productions.

Inspector Farnack was next be seen in the 1980s TV pilot The Saint in Manhattan.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3225

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