Prismark10 Louis Hayward plays the Saint, rather less suave than Roger Moore would play him a few decades later in the television series but more of a dapper thuggish charm.This Saint is not a copper or a sleuth but more of a Robin Hood type vigilante who is not prepared to mask himself like Zorro and work incognito.This Saint is prepared to break the law and serve justice his own way as he has been hired to clean up the city and find the Big Fellow with Kay Sutton helping out and adding romantic interest.The adventure is a potboiler with plenty of fisticuffs but the mystery element is lacking as a modern audience will easily guess who the Big Fellow will turn out to be.

vollenhoven Simon Templar aka the Saint started his long and illustrious career in 1929 with the release of Meet the Tiger as written by the brilliant Leslie Charteris. By the time this movie came along The Saint was already a very popular book character. And while most people know of Roger Moore, Ian Ogylvie, Simon Dutton or George Sanders playing the Saint this first one is played by Louis Hayward (he played in the first movie and the last one of the b/w series) and he does it very well. This Saint is light years away from the later suave performance of Sanders or Moore. This is a straight "revenge" story in which the Saint takes care of the organized crime in New York, by means that are not available to the police. In the book he has stay clear of both parties but in the movie, a knee fall to morality of those days, he is more or less asked by the police. The Saint does so in a whirlwind 48 hours. The 60 odd minutes the movie lasts fly by and leaves you with the feeling to see more.In a recent movie by Tarantino (Inglorious Basterds) he kinda gives a wink to the Saint by letting his heroine read a novel "Le Saint a New York", which proves that the Saint is still out there. With a new TV-pilot just behind the horizon. Now if the powers that be only released a full DVD-boxset of all b/w Saintmovies I for one would be a very pleased person.

bob the moo With crime rife in New York due to gangs and a small group of men in particular, Inspector Fernack makes the decision to bring in Simon Templar aka "The Saint" to help. The Saint is known as someone able to bring down criminal organisations but has gained notoriety due to the criminal methods he uses to do so. Dispatching one of the men with a clinical kill very early on, Templar quickly uncovers the existence of a character known as the "Big Fellow" – clearly a top man behind the gangs. Moving steadily into more and more danger he tries to reach and remove the Big Fellow to cut the head off the snake.I'm not sure why this film was apparently banned in Sweden on its release but I would hazard a guess that it had something to do with the marvellous anti-hero qualities that Templar is given in this film. The plot could have been straight out of any crime b-movie as it essentially involves bringing "justice" to New York by taking down a major crime syndicate; however in many other films from the 1930's the hero would have been a cop trying to get a conviction and, if he killed anyone it would have been by necessity rather than choice. However with this film we have a character who kills by choice and is as much a killer as he is a bringer of justice. This dark edge makes the film more interesting than the standard plot suggests it should be and I was quite taken in by it even if the quest for the "Big Fellow" wasn't really delivered with any tension or mystery (which was a bit of a shame, although it did enough to keep me guessing and watching).The real feather in the cap is Louis Hayward who plays it with the perfect mix of the suave and the psychotic. He is convincing as a bit of a smooth character but, more importantly, he convinced me as a cold-blooded killer and I enjoyed the dark feel he brought to the film. Outside of his though the performances are either just OK or wooden but nothing better; they more or less do the job but I could help feel that Hayward deserved more than the very basic caricatures of cops and criminals.Overall though this is a tough and enjoyable b-movie that features an enjoyably dark anti-hero. Later films in the series (well, the next one in fact) would quickly lose touch with this dark, cruel character and tone it down to be nonexistent but here it is in full effect and it makes a standard (if engaging) plot much better than it deserved to be.

silverscreen888 This by my lights is a splendid and very good story about Leslie Charteris's enigmatic character, Simon Templar, "the Saint"; it was the first of a series of films which starred several actors inn the role. Louis Hayward is fascinating inn the part, occasionally a bit stodgy but intelligent, and compelling. The film was directed by Ben Holmes, and also stars Kay Sutton as an enigmatic bad girl, Sig Ruman, Jonathan Hale, Jack Carson and many others in small but effective parts. The storyline is what set\s this ethical masterpiece apart. Templar is tracked down in foreign parts by an honest man representing a group in New York who want to bring down the mysterious crime boss who is poisoning the city with his influence. Templar, for his own reasons--the challenge, the chance to accomplish something worthwhile--agrees to risk his life; not for altruism but for his own code of values, his own desire to use his talents to the full. He starts pushing, commits some questionable break-ins and more,, all the time making himself more dangerous and getting closer to finding out who the big fella" is. I will not reveal the climax or the ending, except to say Templar has fallen in love with Kay--but she can never be his after what happens. Roy Webb wrote the music; the production values of this B/W gem are subtle and a little above average. But what drives it is the script, written from Charteris's novel,; it is the best of an interesting series because it is fast-paced, original, clever in dialogue and clear in its contexted ethical purposiveness; the group who hired him and the viewers finally come to know that they picked the right man, whatever doubts they may originally have had about the famous and notorious Simon Templar. Sutton is very good; Carson and several others are very competent also. Highly recommended.