The Saint's Vacation

From the sets and scenery, it must be assumed that the main action of the film takes place in Switzerland.

Since Switzerland is on the continent and the film is set in 1941, it seems most unlikely that of the three cars used during filming, two would be right-hand drive.

All of mainland Europe drives on the left.

The railway engine shown in the train journey carrying the Saint, his friends and the bad guys is a different engine to that which eventually pulls into the station en route from where they all alight.

"The Saint's Vacation" moves along briskly. The fast pace enhances what would otherwise be a pretty typical B-mystery of the era.

If it were not for Cecil Parker, who makes the most of an unusual role as the villain in this entry scripted by Leslie Charteris himself in collaboration with the talented Jeffrey Dell (who later wrote and directed that outstanding 1952 thriller, "The Dark Man"), and some good work by Arthur Macrae as our hero's right-hand man (he certainly fooled me with his gendarme impersonation), this entry could be classed as pretty routine. Certainly, former actor Leslie Fenton's direction is nothing to write home about, although he does stage the action with reasonable aplomb.

Entertaining little low-budget entry from Great Britain, it has HUGH SINCLAIR as "The Saint" involved immediately in getting hold of a music box that holds some sort of war secret--although the war itself is never actually named and kept strictly out of sight. SALLY GRAY makes a pleasant female lead, a newspaper reporter who is a lot braver than The Saint's sidekick, played by ARTHUR MACRAE in a most annoying manner.

Hugh Sinclair is The Saint, Simon Templar, in "The Saint's Vacation," a 1941 film also starring Sally Gray, Cecil Parker and Arthur Macrae. Besides Roger Moore and Ian Ogilvy on television, the Saint has been played by Sinclair, Louis Hayward and George Sanders (that I've seen).

I have seen most of the Saint films and was expecting not to like this one which starred Hugh Sinclair. Why?

Saint's Vacation, The (1941) ** (out of 4) Seventh film in RKO's series has George Sanders being replaced by Hugh Sinclair. This time out The Saint is battling a man over a mysterious box, which contains some sort of secret code.

The extraordinary thing about director Leslie Fenton's "The Saint's Vacation" is that RKO Studio produced this black & white thriller in England during World War II. For whatever reason, however, the filmmakers made no mention of the war.

Granted this is a B picture from RKO so there will be less care taken, but I could hardly wrap my mind around the concept that British people in 1941 were going on holiday to Switzerland. The continent was a bit hostile at the time.

As well as showing several Falcon movies recently, BBC2 also shown The Saint's Vacation, so I set the video and was pleased I did.