Mon 20 Jul 2009
TCM ALERT – Stewart Granger Crime Films [+] The Saint.
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Mystery movies[3] Comments
Overnight, Tuesday, July 21 to Wednesday, July 22 —
8:00 PM Footsteps in the Fog (1955)
An ambitious housemaid learns her employer murdered his wife. Cast: Stewart Granger, Jean Simmons, Bill Travers. Dir: Arthur Lubin. C-90 mins, TV-G, Letterbox Format
9:45 PM Secret Partner, The (1961)
A shipping tycoon with a record becomes a suspect when money goes missing from the company vault. Cast: Stewart Granger, Bernard Lee, Haya Harareet. Dir: Basil Dearden. BW-91 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format
11:30 PM Light Touch, The (1952)
An art thief tries to double cross his gangster boss. Cast: Stewart Granger, George Sanders, Pier Angeli. Dir: Richard Brooks. BW-93 mins, TV-G, CC
1:15 AM Whole Truth, The (1958)
A woman tries to prove her cheating husband didn’t murder his mistress. Cast: Stewart Granger, Donna Reed, George Sanders. Dir: Dan Cohen, John Guillerman. BW-84 mins, TV-PG
2:45 AM Secret Invasion, The (1964)
Five criminals win early pardons to infiltrate a Nazi outpost. Cast: Stewart Granger, Raf Vallone, Mickey Rooney. Dir: Roger Corman. C-95 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format
All day Wednesday, July 22 —
11:15 AM Saint In New York, The (1938)
The Saint goes undercover to get the goods on New York’s mob kingpins. Cast: Louis Hayward, Kay Sutton, Jonathan Hale. Dir: Ben Holmes. BW-72 mins, TV-G
12:30 PM Saint Strikes Back, The (1939)
The Saint helps a young beauty take vengeance on the mobsters who ruined her father. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Barry Fitzgerald. Dir: John Farrow. BW-64 mins, TV-G
1:45 PM Saint In London, The (1939)
The Saint’s investigation of a counterfeiting ring uncovers a nest of spies. Cast: George Sanders, David Burns, Sally Gray. Dir: John Paddy Carstairs. BW-72 mins, TV-G, CC
3:00 PM Saint’s Double Trouble, The (1940)
Reformed jewel thief Simon Templer lands in hot water when a look-alike smuggles stolen goods out of Egypt. Cast: George Sanders, Jonathan Hale, Bela Lugosi. Dir: Jack Hively. BW-67 mins, TV-G, CC
4:15 PM Saint Takes Over, The (1940)
Reformed jewel thief Simon Templar tries to help a police inspector who’s been framed on bribery charges. Cast: George Sanders, Jonathan Hale, Wendy Barrie. Dir: Jack Hively. BW-70 mins, TV-G, CC
5:30 PM Saint In Palm Springs, The (1941)
Reformed jewel thief Simon Templar’s efforts to deliver a fortune in rare stamps are complicated by murder. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Jonathan Hale. Dir: Jack Hively. BW-66 mins, TV-G
6:45 PM Saint Meets The Tiger, The (1943)
The Saint infiltrates a small English village run by smugglers. Cast: Hugh Sinclair, Jean Gillie, Clifford Evans. Dir: Paul L. Stein. BW-69 mins, TV-G
[UPDATE] 07-22-09. The best laid plans and all that. Our cable, Internet and phone service all took short vacations this evening and early morning. The cable came back after only a 15 minute recess, but it still means there’s going to be a big, unfillable hole in The Light Touch. I haven’t seen any of these Stewart Granger films, so the loss of any of them qualifies as at least a minor catastrophe. Hopefully it’s going to be only the one.
As for later today, I must have seen all but one or two of the Saint movies, and I probably have permanent copies of them all, but I’ll record them anyway, just in case I don’t.
July 22nd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Sorry you missed part of The Light Touch, despite the name its fairly dark and somber, but worth seeing for Granger and Sanders. Not Richard Brooks at his best though.
Footsteps is a very good Victorian mystery melodrama with husband and wife Granger and Simmons in fine form together. It may well be his best acting performance on screen.
The Secret Partner is another good tale of modern murder and crime with solid twists and good direction by Basil Deardon. It’s one of the few films to feature Haya Haarreet (Ben Hur).
The Whole Truth may be just below the others though ins some ways I like it better, and again worth catching for Granger and Sanders and this time Donna Reed. Some nice twists and a down to the wire finish.
Secret Invasion is okay, sort of a low budget Dirty Dozen.
Worth finding is Blanche Fury with Granger and Valerie Hobson in a really handsome gothic melodrama of murder and ambition with Granger an ambitious steward plotting to take over an estate. It’s based on the novel by Joseph Shearing (Elizabeth Longrigg aka Marjorie Bowen). Gorgeous color directed by Marc Allagret.
I also like Fritz Lang’s film of J. Meade Faulkner’s Moonfleet with Granger a dashing Cornish smuggler pitted against his own men and crooked aristocrat George Sanders to save a boy who may hold the key to a treasure. It’s not one of Lang’s best, but fairly faithful to the Stevensonian novel and Granger is quite good, while the movie looks wonderful. He also co starred in The Man in Grey the film that made a star of his old friend James Mason.
Granger can claim a real tie to crime. In his autobiography he admits once contemplating murdering Howard Hughes who was harassing Jean Simmons. I think Granger and Simmons were divorced by then, but they remained friends for the rest of their lives even appearing on Broadway in a Noel Coward revival not long before Granger’s death.
Some of his later spy and mystery films have their moments though The Trygon Factor is a confusing mess despite the good cast.
Of the made for television version of The Hound of the Baskervilles Granger made as Sherlock Holmes the best that can be said is that he did not embarrass himself, which is more than can be said for Bernard Fox’s Watson and William Shatner’s Stapleton.
The Saint films aren’t bad. The Saint In New York is fairly faithful to the book, and though Charteris didn’t care for Louis Hayward he is probably the best of the big screen Simon Templars. All of the Sanders Saint films are worth watching with The Saint in London and The Saint in Palm Springs the best though it’s worth seeing Sanders in a dual role in Double Trouble and Lugosi as the villain.
Hugh Sinclair is a terrible choice to play the Saint, but Tiger isn’t awful, and his other outing The Saint’t Vacation, based on The Saint’s Getaway is good, and the only film to portray Simon’s lady friend Patricia Holm.
You can find Dance of Death, an unauthorized French Saint film with Felix Martin on the gray market with the hero’s named changed. I think there may also be another unauthorized French Saint film with Jean Marais.
NBC’s The Philanthropist, now playing, was supposed to be a new Saint series, but the deal fell through. From the ratings maybe they should have gone with Simon Templar.
July 29th, 2009 at 7:54 am
The original version of ‘The Dance of Death’, Le Saint mène la danse was fully authorised by Leslie Charteris. It was only the dubbed ‘Dance of Death’ that was unauthorised.
The 1966 film Le Saint prend l’affut which starred Jean Marais was also authorised by Leslie but once he’d seen it he deemed it so awful he limited the sales of the film to French speaking territories only. Might have been something to do with the bowler hat and kilt that Saint Marais was seen wearing in the movie…
The Philanthropist was not supposed to be a new Saint series. Both series are separate entities and were in development at the same time and whilst The Saint lost both on and off camera personnel to The Philanthropist I’d have to say, with the benefit of hindsight, it was no great loss.
The Saint remains in active development. Tj Scott will be directing the pilot and the leading man should be announced any day soon. They’re currently planning to start shooting in Vancouver this September.
July 29th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Ian
I wasn’t clear about the Philanthropist, and only meant the star James Purefroy was supposedly going to do the Saint and ended up doing this one instead.
Thanks for clearing up the French Saint films, I had always heard they were totally unauthorized, but this makes more sense. Dance of Death isn’t bad despite the dubbing, though Felix Martin is no one’s idea of the Saint.
Nice to know the Saint is still shopping around for a new venue. He’s welcome on my screen anytime.
Oddly, since Stewart Granger shares the article above, you can’t help but wonder how he might have done in the part. He certainly had the look and the flair. I’ve always seen the Saint as more swashbuckler than tough guy.