The Saint in New York *** (1938, Louis Hayward, Kay Sutton, Sig Ruman, Jonathan Hale) – Classic Movie Review 3221

‘You’d think someone with the name Violet Throckmorton would have enough trouble in life without you adding to it!’

Director Ben Holmes’s 1938 crime thriller The Saint in New York is the first of eight RKO Pictures films featuring Leslie Charteris’s popular fictional detective – a 20th-century Robin Hood feared by criminals and cops alike. It is adapted from Leslie Charteris’s novel of the same name by Charles Kaufman and Mortimer Offner, and marks the first screen appearance of Simon Templar, aka The Saint.

Louis Hayward seems ideally cast as British amateur detective and gentleman criminal Simon Templar, aka The Saint, off on a mission to stop the mystery man behind New York’s underworld when the New York police department enlists his help in fighting criminals in the city after a police officer is killed and Jake Irbell is arrested and charged with his murder, but has to be released in court through a sudden lack of witnesses. Kay Sutton co-stars as Templar’s love interest, Fay Edwards.

William Valcross (Frederick Burton), a member of the civilian crime commission, suggests the police resort to drastic measures and the police commissioner agrees to him recruiting Simon Templar, who is given a list of six gangsters whose removal would bring peace to the city.

This is a stylish, noirish production, sharply directed by Holmes, with a particularly lively and effective support cast led by Sig Ruman as a crook called Hutch Rellin and Jonathan Hale as the NYPD police inspector Henry Fernack. Also in the cast are Frederick Burton  as William Valcross, Jack Carson as Red Jenks, Paul Guilfoyle as Hymie Fanro, Charles Halton as lawyer Vincent Nather, Cliff Bragdon as Sebastian Lipke, Frank M Thomas as Prosecutor, George Irving as Judge, Paul Fix as club doorman Phil Farrell, Edward LeSaint as Committee Member, and Ben Welden as gangster ‘Pappy’ Papinoff.

The Saint in New York was a surprise hit for RKO, who decided to turn it into a series, and announced the second film as The Saint Strikes Twice to start filming in August 1938 with Hayward. But that did not happen. Good though Hayward is as the rakish sleuth, RKO hired George Sanders, borrowed from 20th Century Fox, to take over for the retitled next episode: The Saint Strikes Back (1939) and he made the role his own, appearing in a further four episodes between 1939 and 1941, becoming established face of The Saint. Sanders then stepped into RKO’s similar Falcon series.

Hayward was unable to repeat the role because he decided to sign to a multi-picture deal by producer Edward Small, who wanted to make him a star, and Hayward ended up making the classic The Man in the Iron Mask (1939). However, Hayward played The Saint again in 1953 in The Saint’s Return (Saint’s Girl Friday in the US).

Hale’s Inspector Fernack appeared four times in the series, and he is a very considerable asset.

Alfred Hitchcock showed interest in coming to America to make The Saint in New York and met with Lillie Messinger of RKO Pictures in 1937, but it never happened.

The RKO The Saint films are: The Saint in New York (1938), 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), The Saint’s Vacation (1941) with Hugh Sinclair and The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943) also with Hugh Sinclair.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3221

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