User reviews

Snappy mystery with perhaps a far-fetched premise but George Sanders at his suave and wry best. George Sanders is ahead of the police all of the way and he again manipulates them into succeeded despite their best efforts. The Saint, remarks Professor Horatio Bitts, "has never been convicted of a crime, has he?" OK, perhaps it is a bit much that we all have a double that so resembles us that even our most close confidants would not recognize us. OK, so from time to time it is difficult to tell on a black on white screen whether George is playing the Saint or his look-alike jewel thief "Boss Duke Bates." OK, so what does the "ST" ring really have to do with anything and which character had it in his possession? But consider that in this entry into the series, we have George Sanders cross-dressing and leaping fearlessly on the back of moving vehicles from which he is poised to save a damsel in distress! Not the greatest film, but certainly not the worst of the Saint lot if you include the group done with Sanders brother. The Saint's Double Trouble is better than most of the one hour produced for TV mysteries that we are subjected to today. Jonathan Hale is perfect as Inspector Fernack and Donald MacBride does yeoman service as the Philadelphia police chief of detectives. Bela Lugosi must have needed the work. One of two of Helene Whitney's credited films. Her most memorable line is the closing line of the film: "Long live the Saint."

You have to be willing to suspend disbelief whenever you watch films like THE SAINT'S DOUBLE TROUBLE, in which GEORGE SANDERS (as "The Saint") discovers that the police are really looking for his exact double who's been committing a number of crimes involving diamond smuggling and a mummy from Egypt. To make sure that audiences know which man we're watching, they have "The Saint" whistling his famous tune as a sort of identification bracelet...but unless you're a fan of the series, you may be missing the clue.

JONATHAN HALE is a nice addition to the cast as Inspector Fernack who, for awhile, is just as confused as everyone else as to the identity of the real criminal. HELENE WHITNEY makes a bland leading lady as the blonde damsel in distress and BELA LUGOSI has a nothing role as a man called The Partner, a colorless part that could have been filled by any nondescript actor in search of work.

There are plenty of escapes for Sanders who is seen narrowly drowning when tied up in a motorboat, leaping onto the back of moving autos to keep track of the kidnapped heroine and making various narrow escapes from the law by devious means. It's his third time as Simon and he looks comfortable enough in the double role, although all the plot twists and turns are a bit hard to swallow with the police and the criminals being unbelievably dumb.

Summing up: Despite obvious drawbacks, it's a fun caper to watch and moves briskly toward a satisfying ending if you're a fan of the series.

There's a dead ringer for Simon Templar operating as a crime kingpin in Philadelphia…and he's started leaving the Saint's calling card at crime scenes. Will the real Simon Templar please come investigate?

Meanwhile, the Saint's old friend Inspector Fernack (Jonathan Hale) is on vacation in—you guessed it—Philadelphia. He stops at the department to visit old friend Deputy Chief Bohlen (Donald MacBride)—and tags along with him on a murder case that turns up the Saint's calling card. Fernack is on the job.

George Sanders pulls double duty as both Simon Templar and his counterpart, "The Boss" of Philadelphia crime, in this far-fetched but entertaining mystery. The hero's look-alike, and a single actor playing both roles, is not an especially unique idea; and this particular version of that old plot doesn't offer any special twists or turns. Basically, the Saint encounters mistaken identity, sets out to clear his name, runs into danger….

Sanders is, of course, very good. Hale is also fine as Inspector Fernack, and the picture's best scenes are mostly those between Sanders and Hale, as once again outward gruffness partly veils their mutual respect and admiration.

Bela Lugosi is a henchman with a thick accent; somewhat disappointingly, his role here is rather bland and Lugosi becomes just another actor. Helene Whitney is fine as an old flame of Simon's whose professor father is unwittingly drawn into the bad guys' plot; again, her performance is good but the role is rather predictable.

A rather slow middle section is redeemed by an exciting final third, culminating in a neat and clever resolution…. Overall: nothing exceptional but smoothly produced and certainly easy to take, especially for fans of the Saint or Sanders or B mysteries in general.

Unlike James Bond, the equally debonair Saint never made a successful transition to film from the fictional works of Leslie Charteris. Charteris hated all the film Saints - George Sanders, Hugh Sinclair and Leslie Howard. He thought that Cary Grant was the ideal choice for the role. But in the 1940s, the film industry would only make B-movies featuring the Saint. Since Cary Grant did not appear in B-movies, George Sanders got the role. He was popular in it at that time. Sanders always played suave cads extremely well. The Saint of the novels was also a suave cad, yet his creator did not approve of George Sanders. Charteris probably disliked Sanders because the latter did not physically resemble his creation. Roger Moore, the Saint of the small screen, came much closer to Charteris' ideal.

"The Saint's Double Trouble" is worth watching if you are Saint fan. If you like the sneering, sardonic George Sanders like I do, you will like it.

(Reviewed by Sundar Narayan)

George Sanders, in fact two George Sanders, arrive in the City of Brotherly Love to investigate a nice little diamond smuggling racket. But what a place to smuggle diamonds, in the sarcophagus of a long dead Egyptian mummy. What interests Simon Templar however is the fact that the head of the racket is a dead ringer for him and also played by George Sanders. He might well be responsible for the unsavory reputation the Saint has in some quarters.

Jonathan Hale as Inspector Fernack is in from New York and as the most authoritative expert on the activities of Simon Templar is drafted by the Philadelphia police in the person of Donald MacBride. In fact Fernack knows of a telltale scar on the wrist of the real Templar and can tell them apart. That fact proves most handy.

Bela Lugosi has an inexplicably small role as 'the partner' in the smuggling activities. I'm betting the editors at RKO probably left a lot of Lugosi on the cutting room floor. The film would have been better had Lugosi been left in.

As it is it's an OK B programmer and a plus for fans of Leslie Charteris's modern Robin Hood.

Fourth film in the Saint series from RKO has George Sanders playing dual roles: Simon Templar and his evil doppelganger, Duke! The Saint has 48 hours to prove it was Duke and not he that committed a murder. Guess what? He'll only need 47. This is a good entry in the series with Sanders having fun playing bad. It's very amusing to hear him say things like "You mugs," even if he makes little effort to hide his accent. Bela Lugosi is also in this but, unfortunately, he's not given much to do. He's just an associate of the evil double. Still it's cool seeing Lugosi playing in a non-horror role with an actor you don't normally see him with. Pretty Helene Reynolds is the obligatory would-be love interest. The camera is in love with her. After being absent in the last film, Jonathan Hale returns as the likable police inspector frenemy of the Saint. The rest of the cast includes Donald MacBride, Byron Foulger, Thomas W. Ross, John F. Hamilton, and Elliott Sullivan. Those last two play the evil double's henchman. They have some funny lines.

An enjoyable movie, mostly due to Sanders. The story isn't much to get excited about. It's never really explained why Saint has a double or what led Duke to know about him in the first place. Also, the Saint not seeming upset about the killing of the kindly old man who was a friend of his didn't sit right with me. Oh, and how cool is it that apparently back in the old days a guy could mail a mummy to another guy halfway around the world. And we think we have progress!

While some are better than others, pretty much all of the Saint films starring George Sanders are watchable at least once, even the lesser efforts. 'The Saint's Double Trouble' is a contender for the weakest of the series, and somewhat of a let-down after one of the best of the series with 'The Saint Takes Over'.

There are good things here. The sets are suitably atmospheric, it is one of the better looking films of the series and jauntily scored. The best thing about the film is Sanders, not just playing the title role but also his criminal double. He is super-suave, sophisticated and wonderfully caddish, while also giving a charming and humorous edge and delivering some cutting lines with aplomb.

Jonathan Hale is also very good, while the ending is effective.

On the other hand, the script is a complete mess and is enough to bring the film down more than one notch. It is just too underdeveloped and has too many loose ends, with a lot of corn and very little mystery. The story is also one of the series' least involving, it fails to maintain momentum and gets needlessly over-complicated with very few twists and turns.

It is interesting for featuring Bela Lugosi, who tries to depart from his horror roles to prove that he could do more than that. However he makes very little impact in a role with nothing to it whatsoever, a real waste. The characters are just not interesting at all and sometimes confusingly written.

In summary, a contender for weakest of the Saint films with Sanders. Sanders and Hale are fine but the script and story certainly aren't and bring the film down significantly. 5/10 Bethany Cox

A mundane role in a mundane series would seem to be the kiss of death for most actors and their careers, but George Sanders was an exception. The Saint series was successful because it was more interesting to watch Sanders in a mundane role than several other leading Hollywood actors in major roles of A films. Enjoy this and all the other Saint entries with your family.

Simon Templar (George Sanders), known as "The Saint", whom everyone believed to be in Egypt, suddenly turns up back in Philadelphia, at the home of his friend, Professor Bitts (Thomas W. Ross). Although the reasons aren't given in the film, apparently there is some disagreement over Simon's moral character. When bodies start turning up with incriminating evidence pointing to The Saint, the police try to track him down. However, it turns out that there is more to the story than meets the eye.

I probably shouldn't be reviewing this film until I watch it again (if I do), but I'll just revise my review then if appropriate. As it stands, I have to give this film a generous 4 out of 10.

While The Saint's Double Trouble has promise--nice black and white photography, some good performances (especially by Sanders and Jonathan Hale as inspector Fernack), one of my favorite actors/character actors, Bela Lugosi, has an odd part in it, and the story seems like it should be interesting--the script was a disaster. Part of the problem may have been that this is apparently an entry in a long-running series, and there's no way it's going to make sense out of the context of the series. I haven't seen any of the other films yet, so I have to review this one in isolation.

The script ends up being largely loose threads. Important parts of the backstory are neither shown nor explained. There is a mummy (the presence of which got me very interested in the beginning) that ends up being meaningless to the plot (the little use it had could have been much more easily accomplished by another means). At one point, half of a knife makes an appearance as a token of a mystery, but it is never mentioned again. Characters completely drop out of the film.

Worst of all, the plot hinges on the appearance of Boss Duke Bates, a look-alike for Simon Templar, also played by George Sanders. As can be expected, there are a number of points that rest on confused identities (that's the bulk of the film, actually). The problem is that by the end, I was also so confused that I had no idea which appearance of George Sanders was supposed to be which character, and confusion on this didn't seem to be the point of the conclusion.

Again, maybe this is a fine chapter in a longer story when viewed with the other Saint films, in order. But to start here, I can't recommend The Saint's Double Trouble. It doesn't work as a stand-alone film.

This really is the worst Saint film starring George Sanders. The whole idea of the Saint having an exact double is not too credible but the filmmakers milk it for all it is worth. This results in a confusing film that is short on mystery and long on ridiculous coincidences. The crooks are a very stupid lot in this film. Even the presence of Bela Lugosi does nothing to help the film. He just turns out to be as stupid as the others. George Sanders does what he can with the limited script. He is as suave as ever as Simon Templar but flat as the head of the criminal gang. The scenes pairing Simon with Inspector Fernack(Jonathan Hale) are easily the best in the film. Sanders and Hale click well together as they did in their previous Saint films together. Too bad the story is such a let-down. Only worth seeing for Sanders and Hale. I give it 5 halos out of 10.

Saint's Double Trouble, The (1940)

** (out of 4)

Fourth film in the popular RKO series is perhaps the weakest. This time out The Saint, aka Simon Templar (George Sanders), is wanted by the police for a string of robberies. He didn't actually commit the crimes and must prove his innocence by tracking down the thief who is his double. I made a major mistake by watching this film first from the series and I say mistake because after watching this many might not want to try the others out, which would be a shame as the series actually delivered some pretty good movies. This one here is without question one of the weakest as even Sanders appears to be bored out of his mind. The biggest problem is that the actual story is just too far fetched to be believed. Yes, I know all of these detective films require some wild things to happen but what goes on here, in terms of the double, is just silly and will have your rolling your eyes. Helene Whitney is also quite boring in her part but Jonathan Hale delivers some nice work. He also gets the best scene in the movie when The Saint is daring him to shoot him. The payoff here is quite nice. Bela Lugosi is wasted in his fourth-billed role. It's a shame they couldn't have spiced his part up just a bit. If you're new to the series you certainly won't want to start here. If you're a Lugosi nut just wanting to see him, forget about it because he isn't here long enough to do much. An all around disappointing entry.

George Sanders was suave as the not quite wholesome gentleman adventurer The Saint but this B movie took the biscuit with its lacklustre, silly and confusing plot.

Things start of well with Bela Lugosi popping up in Egypt and it seems an exact double has been smuggling diamonds involving a mummy from Egypt.

We are unsure when Sanders pops up whether he is the Saint or the double. One plot point is that the Mummy has been to sent to his old lecturer who and his daughter have been friends with the real saint but who is this man who looks and sounds like him. How convenient.

It might be that the real saint whistles his tune before he shows up or the villainous double has a tattoo.

Jonathan Hale is Inspector Fernack who is just as confused as everyone else as. Nothing more is made of Lugosi who is wasted in a nothing roles and he is as confused as the audience and he no need to his stock of opium to get there.

There is a nice sequence at the end as the Saint escapes from a leaking motorboat when he is all tied up but further silliness ensures that the Saint and his double swap places in his prison cell. This is not the best plotted or enjoyable of the Saint series.

"The Saint's Double Trouble" is a 1940 entry into the series starring George Sanders.

Simon has sent a mummy of a Pharaoh to a friend, an archeology professor named Bitts. Jewel thief Duke Bates has used the mummy to smuggle illegal diamonds into the country.

Bates is a Templar lookalike who uses his resemblance to kill as The Saint and leave his Saint calling card. So in order to clear himself, Simon has to find out what's going on.

These second features were usually made in a few days with very little in the way of rehearsal. Therefore, to have George Sanders play a double role under those conditions had to be very difficult.

In fairness to Sanders, he was a very good actor and given more time, he could have differentiated a little more between Simon Templar and his double, Duke Bates.

However, it became very confusing as to which one was The Saint and which one was Duke Bates. After awhile, I gave up. Duke Bates spoke a little more roughly than Simon, but it wasn't consistent.

Not the best film in an otherwise enjoyable series.

George Sanders returns in the fourth installment of RKO's The Saint series. He ships Professor Thomas Ross a sarcophagus and then goes to visit him in Philadelphia. Little does he know that an exact double of his is running a criminal ring, shipping jewels to the US in cooperation with Bela Lugosi. Fortunately, Jonathan Hale is in town visiting fellow inspector Donald MacBride, so there are twice as many George Sanders to confound twice as many everyone elses.

Most B series had an episode or two in which the hero also played the villain who surprisingly looks exactly like him. This enabled the writers to think themselves clever and the actor to show his range. Sanders assumes this dread responsibility by wearing wide lapels and being grouchy. It is, after all, twice as much work for the same pay.

Worth noting is that Ross was one of Sanders' professors at college, and he has a beautiful daughter in Helene Reynolds, to whom Sanders pledged his troth when she was sixteen and he was graduating. I suspect that's where Spielberg's crew got that aspect of Indiana Jones.

I generally enjoy watching these old films with George Sanders because he was such a super-smoothie that one never tires of seeing him glide through a film with the effortless ease of a champion ice skater, carrying the very concept of urbanity to undreamt-of extremes. But sometimes the stories are just too silly! Of all the 'Saint' series where he plays Simon Templar the detective (the character invented by Leslie Charteris), this must be the weakest and most pathetic. (It is the fourth in a series of nine.) No efforts whatsoever were made to make the film even remotely believable, and the age level of the viewer must have been calculated to be about six, since after that even a child would refuse to believe this ludicrous story. Essentially, we are meant to believe that George Sanders has a lookalike (hence the 'double trouble' of the title, i.e., he has a double and that is trouble). The only difference between them is that they wear different suits. Otherwise they look and talk exactly alike. And there is not even the pretext that they are related. One is good and one is bad. Well, it's as simple as that really. It is sad to see Bela Lugosi here relegated to the status of a bit player. The pretty girl in the film is 23 year-old Helene Whitney, in one of only two credited roles which she played in films; she retired the same year, married, or died, one doesn't know which. What happens to people who disappear from the screen? Do they go to some celluloid paradise? If so, they will leave this silly film behind, that's for sure.

1940's "The Saint's Double Trouble" was the fourth of 9 features in the movie series based on the Leslie Charteris character, begun by Louis Hayward two years earlier in "The Saint in New York" (he repeats the role for the 1953 British finale "The Saint's Girl Friday"), third of five to star George Sanders (preceded by "The Saint Strikes Back" and "The Saint in London," and followed by "The Saint Takes Over" and "The Saint in Palm Springs"), replaced by charisma free Hugh Sinclair for both "The Saint's Vacation" and "The Saint Meets the Tiger." By now Sanders had already tired of the role so this entry offers him the opportunity to share the screen with himself, as Simon Templar as well as Duke Bates, leader of a diamond smuggling ring operating out of a waterfront dive in Philadelphia. The opening scene finds the surprising presence of Bela Lugosi in the secondary role of Bates' unnamed Partner, secretly conducting the latest shipment inside an Egyptian mummy using The Saint as cover (after this Bela remains off screen for a half hour, less than 6 minutes screen time). Templar has a new love interest in Helene Whitney's pretty Anne Bitts, whose father (Thomas W. Ross) is the recipient of the mummy, but it's Duke Bates who first calls upon the Bitts home to examine the hidden location of the diamonds. The Saint is blamed for three murders committed by the double crossing Duke, while the genuine Templar confuses his rival's henchmen in switching places. Jonathan Hale makes his third of five series appearances as Inspector Henry Fernack, knowledgeable enough of The Saint to help him solve crimes when necessary, a crack shot who misses badly when Simon Templar is his target. Sanders doesn't really stand out in either performance, soon to ditch this shady ladies man for four films as The Falcon before graduating to 'A' status. Lugosi is the main source of intrigue though cast as an ordinary thug, and not a very bright one either, similar to his brief turn in Universal's 1936 "Postal Inspector" (his next vehicle would at least find him playing crime boss in Universal's "Black Friday").