Before there was Val Kilmer stinking up the movies as The
Saint, there was a TV show that I never saw, but many people liked. But before that, there was George Sanders –
The Saint.
.
Before TV, there were the B movies. The lower billed movies that were turned out
mainly to fill out a double bill. I lot
of these were character driven detectives – much like the TV shows NCIS and
their ilk are now.
.
The Saint was one of the better of these. Now the budgets were small, and the effects
not great, but every now and then they hummed.
Shot on the stage and backlot, often very good directors worked with
talented cinematographers and actors to create a very good B series.
.
I came to know George Sanders as a bad guy. The evil, but
witty, Addison DeWitt in All About Eve, the self-centered (but straight) Dorian
Grey and, most memorably for a young Scooter, as the voice of Shere Kahn in The
Jungle Book.
.
But seeing him in The Saint (and in particular The Saint In
Palm Springs) shows the urbane actor as a young man, a flirt, and
charming. Something different from how I
learned to recognize him.
.
And The Saint In Palm Springs opens different that nearly
every other detective series. The Saint
fails in the first reel. The Saint was
supposed to protect a man who has a priceless stamp. But the client is killed right away. He goes to protect the daughter and try to
redeem himself. Oh he doesn’t feel that
bad about it, but he is in redemptive mode none-the-less.
.
And it is an interesting look at the “idea” of Plan Springs
back when it was the getaway for the rich and famous.
