The Saints

[ElCid]

Jan 12 is a morning of Saint movies. My favorite is The Saint in Palm Springs. The ones with George Sanders are much better than the ones with Hugh Sinclair.
On the other hand, I think the similar series of Falcon movies are better than the Saint ones and the ones with George Sanders' brother Tom Conway are better than the ones with Sanders.
I am currently reading a book of Saint short stories by Leslie Charteris. Incidentally, Charteris sued RKO (?) when The Falcon movies came out and won or maybe settled. Charteris married Audrey Long, actress, while living in Hollywood contributing to the Saint screenplays.

[Dargo]

Yeah, they barely missed the playoffs this year with a 9-8 record. So what about 'em, Cid???

(...oh...wait...sorry...never mind)

[Masha]

I prefer the Falcon movies over the Saint movies also.

I feel there was a constraint in that the Saint was a literary character and so screenwriters had to work within the character's published canon. There was no such restriction in writing the Falcon. Many traits of the Falcon could change from movie to movie but audiences for the Saint movies could carry printed texts which delineated those character traits for the Saint.

I found a late Falcon movie: Devil's Cargo (1948). John Calvert is not George Sanders and the production company obviously did not have the budget which RKO could throw at a movie but this is a delightful little picture despite all that. It quickly acknowledges that it is a bit of fluff and does not try for edge-of-seat tension or high drama. This Falcon does not have a sidekick nor a lovely bit of scrumptious trying to marry him. He has instead a reasonably intelligent dog and a loyal landlady. It is far from a great example of the genre but I found it sufficiently interesting.

[ElCid]

I prefer the Falcon movies over the Saint movies also.

I feel there was a constraint in that the Saint was a literary character and so screenwriters had to work within the character's published canon. There was no such restriction in writing the Falcon. Many traits of the Falcon could change from movie to movie but audiences for the Saint movies could carry printed texts which delineated those character traits for the Saint.

I found a late Falcon movie: Devil's Cargo (1948). John Calvert is not George Sanders and the production company obviously did not have the budget which RKO could throw at a movie but this is a delightful little picture despite all that. It quickly acknowledges that it is a bit of fluff and does not try for edge-of-seat tension or high drama. This Falcon does not have a sidekick nor a lovely bit of scrumptious trying to marry him. He has instead a reasonably intelligent dog and a loyal landlady. It is far from a great example of the genre but I found it sufficiently interesting.

I'll have to try and find Devil's Cargo. Personally I think Tom Conway did a better job with The Falcon than his brother George Sanders. Of course it could be the manner in which the screenplays were written and the movies directed. Conway's movies were a bit lighter than Sanders'.