SunnyHello Nice effects though.

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Spikeopath George Sanders steps into the shoes of Simon Templar for the first time and beds himself in for a further four movies. The Saint Strikes Back is a complex little tale that takes The Saint to San Francisco and pitches him against a supposed female mob boss. John Twist's screenplay is tailor made for Sanders, ensuring he gets to play up the caddish rogue act with a tongue as sharp as a serpent. It's this aspect that lifts the film above average, the blend of comedy and mystery is deftly handled by Sanders. Support is good from Wendy Barrie, Jonathan Hale, Jerome Cowan and Barry Fitzgerald, while director John Farrow, without adding any stylish flourish, at least keeps the picture nice and brisk. 6/10

blanche-2 George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, John Hale, Jerome Cowan and Barry Fitzgerald star in "The Saint Strikes Back," which serves as the debut of George Sanders as Simon Templar. He follows Louis Hayward who starred as The Saint in "The Saint in New York." Simon travels from coast to coast more than once in this story, which concerns a San Franciso crime ring. A police inspector, accused of being part of the crime ring and subsequently discharged, committed suicide. As a result, his daughter, Val (Barrie) has formed a crime organization of her own, hoping to draw out the head of the ring, a man named Waldeman, who is responsible for framing her father.Templar and Inspector Fernak (Hale) work together to find Waldeman -- of course, Fernack thinks Waldeman might actually be Templar.Directed by John Farrow, the script is a little confusing. Not only that, I lost interest in it after the first half hour and had to go back and try to watch it something like three times. I'm not sure why - it could have just been ADHD.Anyway, Sanders made a good Saint - charming, flirtatious, amusing, not completely on the up and up. But I have to admit, much as I loved him, there was something about Louis Hayward as The Saint that was very smooth and charismatic. He made a big impression on me when I saw The Saint in New York a long time ago.Wendy Barrie plays the late police inspector's tough daughter, and she's pretty hard-nosed. Hale and Sanders play well off of one another.I like some other Saint films better, but this one is okay.

Neil Doyle You have to stay wide awake to follow the plot convolutions of THE SAINT STRIKES BACK and by the time it reaches its final scene you may lose your way keeping track of a number of undeveloped characters whose names are bandied about with such nonchalance that in the end it hardly matters when you discover who the main culprit is.The plot revolves around hard-boiled dame WENDY BARRIE who's surrounded herself with gangsters in order to avenge the death of her father. Barrie gives the kind of performance that should have made her a femme fatale in a number of B-films, but nothing more than that. She's a one note actress if ever there was one.Fortunately, the script is graced by the presence of GEORGE SANDERS, who can deliver a crisp line with so much bite and sarcasm that it's fun to see him using his verbal wit on some unsavory characters. NEIL HAMILTON makes no impression whatsoever in a colorless role as a man supposedly in love with Barrie, but BARRY FITZGERALD turns up to put some spice into the story, at least in the last half of the film.It's strictly formula stuff intended to entertain as a programmer in the late '30s and offers nothing very original or new to make it anything more than something of passing interest.

bob the moo When Simon Templar (aka The Saint) helps self-styled crime boss and daughter of a disgraced cop Val Travers to get away from a nightclub after they were both involved in a shooting. The police connect Templar to the shooting and call in Inspector Fernack from New York to bring him in. Meanwhile Templar gets on the wrong side of Travers and earns her vengeance while also trying to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding her father's fall from grace at the hands of an internal investigation.Following on from the hard edge and anti-hero approach of The Saint when he was in New York, this film cannot help but feel like much more of a sedentary affair with a more liberal approach perhaps befitting the San Francisco setting. That said the film still has a nice feel to it that makes it just a shade better than the b-movie series generally achieved from this point onwards. Much of the credit should probably lie with Farrow's direction because he does give it quite a professional and gritty atmosphere. The story is quite good although not anywhere near as engaging as it should have been and I must admit that at times I drifted away as it lacked a consistent hook to keep me watching.Coming in to replace Hayward, Sanders was never really going to do it for me as I already knew him to be all about the smoothness and the suaveness and it didn't surprised me when his criminal edge was played down to almost nothing and he turned in the sort of performance that made him vastly inferior to the original Saint (in my mind anyway). Support is pretty good from Val Travers – not quite a femme fatale perhaps but certainly a tough woman when required. Hale is OK while people like Elliot, Fitzgerald etc all fill in around the edges.Overall a well-directed film that is a reasonable stab at continuing the series but, for reasons that are perhaps obvious, scaling down the mean edge the original had. Problem is that I liked this about the original film and found this film lacking teeth for being smooth without the savage. Sanders is a nice lead but he cannot lift the material and the end result is a standard b-movie that will please fans of The Saint and The Falcon.