The Saint’s Return [The Saint’s Girl Friday] *** (1953, Louis Hayward, Naomi Chance, Sydney Tafler, Charles Victor, Harold Lang, Diana Dors, Jane Carr) – Classic Movie Review 3,228

Hammer Films’ 1953 British crime mystery thriller film The Saint’s Return is a very watchable revival, with Louis Hayward cast once again after a 15-year gap as Simon Templar.
 

‘When he hits London…blondes…bullets…and blackmail…set him up FOR THE KILL!!’

Director Seymour Friedman’s 1953 crime mystery thriller film The Saint’s Return for Hammer Films (released in the US as The Saint’s Girl Friday) is a very watchable British stab at reviving the series, with Louis Hayward cast once again after a 15-year gap as Simon Templar after his very first appearance in the RKO series of eight. 

This time The Saint comes over from America to England and is on the trail of a gang of illegal professional gamblers working from a barge and the blackmailer who killed one of his old flames who asked the Saint for help and told him her fiancé Keith Merton (William Russell) was being blackmailed by gangsters.

With its fairly neat and complex plot and decent sly sense of humour, it is entirely entertaining, if only mildly. Though The Saint is plenty handy with his fists and gun, the film perhaps just lacks quite enough punch and power. It has a bit of style, but again maybe not quite enough. There are some good scenes, some good dialogue, some well-placed surprises, and there is a nice cheeky ending, though, along with the actors and performances to enjoy.

Though Hammer Films hoped to revive the series, there was no call for any more of The Saint until the hit Roger Moore Sixties TV show (1962-1969).

An ideal Hayward is aloofly smooth, suitably chilly and even a creepy charmer, in a role he created in the original film, The Saint in New York (1938). This is not at all the smiling smoothie Roger Moore version of The Saint. Hayward is quite the anti-hero, a rogue and a crook, and a violent one, but always somehow still on the side of right and honour, if not actually the law. It is a fascinating characterisation.

And there’s a really good true Brit cast to support him in interesting roles: Naomi Chance as the femme fatale Carol Denby, who is paying off her gambling debts by bringing client victims to the gambling barge; Sydney Tafler as the villainous second in command Max Lennar; Charles Victor as the rather slow Chief Inspector Claud Teal, Harold Lang as sinister gambling host Jarvis, Diana Dors as The Blonde, Jane Carr as the campy hostess Katie Finch, William Russell (then billed as Russell Enoch) as gambling victim Keith Merton, Fred Johnson as The Saint’s pal Irish Cassidy, Russell Napier as Colonel Stafford, Sam Kydd as Barclay, John Wynn, George Margo, and Ian Fleming in a small though key role as Lord Merton, Keith Merton[s father.

Diana Dors joined the cast a week after shooting began to add spice to the movie, playing as The Blonde in Max Lennar’s Apartment. She is an asset and does add spice, doing a bit of her usual vamping, amusingly if all too briefly. She had previously made the film noir The Last Page (1952) for Hammer Films.

It is the first and last Saint film to feature the character of The Saint’s valet and factotum Hoppy Uniatz (played by Thomas Gallagher), Templar’s assistant in the 1940s-era Saint books. It is an odd character but Gallagher makes its oddness work.

The film is an original work by British screenwriter Allan MacKinnon, not based directly on any of story by Charteris, who still had a percentage in the film’s profits however.

Louis Hayward asked for Seymour Friedman to replace Montgomery Tully as director.

It was shot from February 2, 1953 to March 6, 1953.

It premiered in London as The Saint’s Return, running 73 minutes, on 12 October 1953, released in the UK by Hammer Films’ distribution company, Exclusive Films. It was released in the US, running 68 minutes, by RKO Pictures as The Saint’s Girl Friday in March, 1954.

The Hammer crew are assembled. Jimmy Sangster is assistant director, Phil Leakey does the makeup, and J Elder Wills is the art director.

In 1960, a Franco-Italian film Le Saint mène la danse, with Felix Marten playing The Saint, was released with limited success. The next English-language cinema film featuring The Saint was not until 1997, The Saint, with Val Kilmer playing Simon Templar in The Saint, again with limited success.  In 1978, the TV series was revived as Return of the Saint, starring Ian Ogilvy as Templar.

The Saint and its books have a fan club called The Saint Club, founded originally in 1936 by Leslie Charteris for the fans of the series, later under the support of honorary vice-presidents Roger Moore, Ian Ogilvy and Simon Dutton. Audrey and Patricia Charteris are Saints-in-Chief. 

The RKO Pictures Saint series started with The Saint in New York (1938) with Louis Hayward. But the next five films in the series starred George Sanders as Templar: The Saint Strikes Back (1939), The Saint in London (1939), The Saint’s Double Trouble (1940), The Saint Takes Over (1940), The Saint in Palm Springs (1941). Then Hugh Sinclair took over: The Saint’s Vacation (1941), The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3,228

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