The Saint in London *** (1939, George Sanders, Sally Gray, David Burns, Gordon McLeod, Henry Oscar, Athene Seyler, John Abbott) – Classic Movie Review 3222

For the third adventure in RKO’s The Saint series, The Saint in London (1939), super-suave George Sanders stars in his second outing as devil-may-care, debonair Simon Templar, in which he is involved with attractive, enthusiastic English society girl Penny Parker (Sally Gray), who joins in his sleuthing, and a case of international currency fraud concocted by an enjoyably ripe gang of lurid bad guys.

The trail leads The Saint to Bruno Lang (Henry Oscar), who is holding captive innocent victim Count Duni (John Abbott). But when The Saint rescues the Count, picking him up on a country road, the gang seizes Penny and offers her as an exchange for the Count. Gordon McLeod amusingly plays the recurring character of The Saint’s nemesis, dithering, hen-pecked Scottish police Inspector Claud Teal.

The Saint in London tells a colourful, entertaining and suspense-filled tale, based on the novel The Million Pound Day by Leslie Charteris, with a busy plot, a sly jokey tone, a fast pace, sharp direction and a witty performance from Sanders, the definitive Saint. The sudden little bursts of action and violence are welcome and well handled, and the comedy is not too painful. Sally Gray makes an appealing sidekick.

Directed by John Paddy Carstairs, it is made over in Britain at Rock Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, by RKO Pictures in 1939, with a useful cast of fine British reliable players, particularly Athene Seyler (amusing as the landlady Mrs Buckley), Ralph Truman (as Kussella), Carl Jaffe (as Stengler), Ballard Berkeley (as The Saint’s Secret Service friend who tips him off about the fraud plot), and Charles Paton (excellent as the sinister Tobacco Shop Proprietor).

Also in the cast are David Burns as the American pickpocket and valet Dugan, Charles Carson, Norah Howard, Hugh McDermott, Charles Oliver and Ben Williams.

It is nicely shot in black and white by Claude Friese-Greene, is produced by William Sistrom and is written by Lynn Root and Frank Fenton, based on Leslie Charteris’s short story The Million Pound Day, published in his 1932 collection The Holy Terror, published in the US as The Saint vs Scotland Yard.

There are just one or two exterior shots, with back projections and stock footage of London helping to set the scene. Chesham Mews, Belgravia, London, is the location of The Saint’s house.

It is preceded by The Saint in New York (1938) with Louis Hayward, and The Saint Strikes Back (1939), and is followed by The Saint’s Double Trouble (1940).

Sanders arrived in London from the US in March 1939 for the shoot.

The Saint in London made a profit of $140,000 for RKO Radio Pictures. Charteris judged it the best of the RKO film series. He dedicated his book The Saint in the Sun to Carstairs, the only person to direct RKO Saint films and two episodes of the 1962–69 series The Saint.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3222

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