Templar's Busman's Holiday
In need of a vacation Simon Templar (Hugh Sinclair), aka The Saint, persuades his friend Monty Hayward (Arthur Macrae) to act as a diversion for the press who are swarming as they think Templar is on to something. Reporter Mary Langdon (Sally Gray) manages to follow them to Switzerland ending up joining forces with them. But it seems like where ever Templar goes trouble follows as he spots master criminal Rudolph Hauser (Cecil Parker) and becomes embroiled in a case of a music box containing a secret code which several people want.
So come 1941 and with George Sanders having moved on to RKO's Falcon series of movies we had Hugh Sinclair stepping in to the role of the suave Simon Templar whilst author Leslie Charteris helped in adapting his own book into the screenplay for "The Saint's Vacation. Does that make "The Saint's Vacation" a good, great or poor movie? Nope it just makes "The Saint's Vacation" a typical entry from the series as we watch Templar get involved in some trouble, dealing with danger and so on before right at the end all is explained. The trouble is that by the time the reveal has come this 61 minute movie has lost your attention because it is just routine.
Now some may put the blame on the change of personnel as Sanders had moved on and Sinclair replaced him but in truth I think Sanders would have struggled to make "The Saint's Vacation" any more attention grabbing due to it being so routine. Having said that Sinclair is certainly no Sanders and he comes up short on charisma, ending up coming across as stiff in pretty much every scene although he certainly throws himself into the fight sequences which are about as attention grabbing as it gets.
What this all boils down to is that "The Saint's Vacation" isn't terrible but it is typical which means it doesn't always keep your attention. In truth by 1941 this original series of Saint movies had run their course and were starting to play on audience's loyalty to keep on watching.
