A dead man on his doorstep leads Simon Templar-- AND Inspector Teal-- to Cornwall, in search of a gang who made off with a MILLION pounds in gold. Simon takes a cottage while he's there, and at a social gathering, acts like he knows far more than he does to make the baddies nervous and draw them out. Teal, meanwhile, goes undercover posing as a geological professor, and while he's ever suspicious of Templar, he's stymied by not wanting to blow his cover. Simon winds up spending half his time flirting with a local girl, Patricia Holm, who winds up joining his crusade to nab the bad guys and uncover the stolen gold. Eventually, it all leads to an amusing run-around on a huge yacht, a couple of red herrings, Simon learning the identity of the gang's leader, and finally revealing to Teal that he IS going to "get away" with the gold. "But you CAN'T DO THAT!" (Oh YES he can-- the same way Thomas Banacek did in every one of HIS stories-- heh.)
If I get this right, RKO British Production made this film, but due to a dispute between RKO in America and author Leslie Charteris, while it was released in England in December 1941, it wasn't until July 1943 that Republic Pictures finally released it in America. I suppose this explains why they didn't make any more after this. What a shame! Based on Leslie Charteris' 1st SAINT novel, "Enter The Tiger" (1928!), this film simply looks and feels more like a "real" SAINT story than almost anything else in the RKO series, and actually feels like a Roger Moore SAINT episode, 20 years EARLY! It has a VERY "English" look and feel to it-- viewers will enjoy it or not based on their liking or lack thereof for such things. I've seen this film multiple times since the 1980s, and I must admit, I NEVER quite enjoyed it as much as I did tonight. Perhaps my tastes have been continuing to evolve over the years.
Hugh Sinclair is TERRIFIC in this film-- so relaxed, so witty, so CONFIDENT, even in the most insane or dangerous situations. In fact, I only have 3 criticisms of him in this film: his hair doesn't look right, his CLOTHES look too casual, and... that moustache. OH dear!
Gordon McLeod makes his 3rd and biggest appearance as "Teal", and he just about steals the picture. Simon dances a fine line with him in this story, telling him if Teal "lets him have his fun", he'll deliver the bad guys to him, but also never quite telling him how. The funniest moment in the story has to be when Teal has Templar arrested for murder, then, an hour later, laughs himself silly revealing that he never did think Simon was guilty. These two have a very strange "friendship", if that's what you'd call it.
Wylie Watson is "Horace", Simon's butler, who wonders if he made the right decision turning down a job with a Chicago gangster. The only other thing I've ever seen him in was the offbeat comedy WHISKEY GALORE (1949).
Jean Gillie is "Patricia Holm", who turns out to be far more help than most girls in these things. In the books, she was Simon's on-again-off-again sometimes-steady girlfriend, and it's sad that this is the only time she ever appeared onscreen. Ironically, the character of Pat was in both "The Million Pound Day" and "Getaway", adapted as THE SAINT IN LONDON and THE SAINT'S VACATION-- but both films had Sally Gray, playing 2 different characters, instead of Pat-- and she'd have been PERFECT in the role! Well, Gillie is no Sally Gray... but, she's nice enough, and the presence of both Pat and Horace makes me really wish they'd done a whole long series of these things in England after this one.
The only other actor I really know in this one is Clifford Evans, who plays Pat's friend "Tidemarsh", the local newspaper reporter... who also turns out to be the film's MAIN villain. The audience is clued in on this quite early, while apparently, his identity was not revealed in the book until the very end. This reminds me of how the "007" film DR. NO totally gave away the main plot while Bond was still in M's office, instead of keeping it a mystery until 3/4ths of the way in. Long before I saw this film, I saw Evans on THE PRISONER as the "Number Two" who oversaw the mind-transfer story in "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling".
Someone mentioned a body on the hero's doorstep coming from "The Maltese Falcon", but that book came out in 1930, 2 years after "Enter The Tiger". Meanwhile, I noticed a line where Simon says "I keep collecting guns", a line very similar to one Humphrey Bogart said as Philip Marlowe in THE BIG SLEEP (1944 / 1946)-- but that book came out in 1939! The bookcase hiding the entrance to an underground tunnel also turned up in the film A STUDY IN SCARLET (1933), but, the book that movie was based on, "Six Dead Men", came out in 1931! Seems to me other writers made a habit of swiping from Leslie Charteris (and NOT just Michael Arlen-- heh).
At the end, Simon tells Pat, "Halfway around the world there's a crook with a lot of money, and I'm going to have a lot of fun with him!" What a shame we had to wait so long to see The Saint onscreen again after this!
If I get this right, RKO British Production made this film, but due to a dispute between RKO in America and author Leslie Charteris, while it was released in England in December 1941, it wasn't until July 1943 that Republic Pictures finally released it in America. I suppose this explains why they didn't make any more after this. What a shame! Based on Leslie Charteris' 1st SAINT novel, "Enter The Tiger" (1928!), this film simply looks and feels more like a "real" SAINT story than almost anything else in the RKO series, and actually feels like a Roger Moore SAINT episode, 20 years EARLY! It has a VERY "English" look and feel to it-- viewers will enjoy it or not based on their liking or lack thereof for such things. I've seen this film multiple times since the 1980s, and I must admit, I NEVER quite enjoyed it as much as I did tonight. Perhaps my tastes have been continuing to evolve over the years.
Hugh Sinclair is TERRIFIC in this film-- so relaxed, so witty, so CONFIDENT, even in the most insane or dangerous situations. In fact, I only have 3 criticisms of him in this film: his hair doesn't look right, his CLOTHES look too casual, and... that moustache. OH dear!
Gordon McLeod makes his 3rd and biggest appearance as "Teal", and he just about steals the picture. Simon dances a fine line with him in this story, telling him if Teal "lets him have his fun", he'll deliver the bad guys to him, but also never quite telling him how. The funniest moment in the story has to be when Teal has Templar arrested for murder, then, an hour later, laughs himself silly revealing that he never did think Simon was guilty. These two have a very strange "friendship", if that's what you'd call it.
Wylie Watson is "Horace", Simon's butler, who wonders if he made the right decision turning down a job with a Chicago gangster. The only other thing I've ever seen him in was the offbeat comedy WHISKEY GALORE (1949).
Jean Gillie is "Patricia Holm", who turns out to be far more help than most girls in these things. In the books, she was Simon's on-again-off-again sometimes-steady girlfriend, and it's sad that this is the only time she ever appeared onscreen. Ironically, the character of Pat was in both "The Million Pound Day" and "Getaway", adapted as THE SAINT IN LONDON and THE SAINT'S VACATION-- but both films had Sally Gray, playing 2 different characters, instead of Pat-- and she'd have been PERFECT in the role! Well, Gillie is no Sally Gray... but, she's nice enough, and the presence of both Pat and Horace makes me really wish they'd done a whole long series of these things in England after this one.
The only other actor I really know in this one is Clifford Evans, who plays Pat's friend "Tidemarsh", the local newspaper reporter... who also turns out to be the film's MAIN villain. The audience is clued in on this quite early, while apparently, his identity was not revealed in the book until the very end. This reminds me of how the "007" film DR. NO totally gave away the main plot while Bond was still in M's office, instead of keeping it a mystery until 3/4ths of the way in. Long before I saw this film, I saw Evans on THE PRISONER as the "Number Two" who oversaw the mind-transfer story in "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling".
Someone mentioned a body on the hero's doorstep coming from "The Maltese Falcon", but that book came out in 1930, 2 years after "Enter The Tiger". Meanwhile, I noticed a line where Simon says "I keep collecting guns", a line very similar to one Humphrey Bogart said as Philip Marlowe in THE BIG SLEEP (1944 / 1946)-- but that book came out in 1939! The bookcase hiding the entrance to an underground tunnel also turned up in the film A STUDY IN SCARLET (1933), but, the book that movie was based on, "Six Dead Men", came out in 1931! Seems to me other writers made a habit of swiping from Leslie Charteris (and NOT just Michael Arlen-- heh).
At the end, Simon tells Pat, "Halfway around the world there's a crook with a lot of money, and I'm going to have a lot of fun with him!" What a shame we had to wait so long to see The Saint onscreen again after this!