THE SAINT STRIKES BACK (1939)

Director: John Farrow

Writers: John Twist and A.C. Edington (uncredited) adapting Leslie Charteris’ Saint novel Angels of Doom, aka She Was a Lady, The Saint Meets His Match

Producer: Robert Sisk

Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Jonathan Hale, Neil Hamilton, Jerome Cowan, Barry Fitzgerald, Gilbert Emery, Robert Elliott, Russell Hopton, Edward Gargan, Robert Strange, James Burke. Nella Walker, (and uncredited cast) Willie Best, Paul E. Burns, Tristram Coffin, Robert Homans, Gerald Hamer, Ray Turner, Kernan Cripps, Jack Gargan, Tex Brodus, Tom McGuire, Howard M. Mitchell, Frank O’Connor, Ted Oliver, Tom Quinn, Bob Reeves, Ben Taggart, Dale Van Sickel 

In San Francisco, California at the Colony Club New Year’s Eve party, a gunshot rings out at the stroke of midnight. The victim is a notorious gunman that was drawing a bead on another guest at the party. He was shot by Simon Templar (George Sanders), an adventurer, amateur sleuth, and criminal-robbing thief better known as the Saint. Templar is in San Francisco to expose Waldeman, the mysterious leader of a group of criminals. Templar is also at odds with Val Travers (Wendy Barrie). She is the beautiful blonde that was accompanied by the gunman Templar shot. Travers’ father was a police inspector framed for robbery involving the Waldeman gang. That disgrace led to his suicide. Travers has allied herself with underworld characters to help her avenge her father. Simon Templar tries to charm the vengeful Val Travers at the same time he is trying to expose the criminals that she wants to destroy, though she may also be associating with them. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

Simon Templar, alias the Saint, was introduced in Leslie Charteris’ 1928 novel Meet the Tiger. This led to an ongoing series of stories written by Charteris until 1963. Charteris collaborated with other writers for more Saint adventures that were published until 1983. Simon Templar was an English antihero often seen as something of a precursor to James Bond. The popularity of the character’s stories led to more Saint adventures in radio shows, comic strips, comic books, movies, and television. 

RKO Radio Pictures produced the first film presentation of the Saint, 1938’s The Saint in New York starring Louis Hayward. The film was very successful, and a series soon followed. Due to commitments to appear in other films, Hayward was unable to continue playing Simon Templar, so George Sanders began his five-film stint as the Robin Hood of Modern Crime. Until Roger Moore starred as Leslie Charteris’ hero in the 1960s television series The Saint (1962-69), George Sanders was the actor most identified with the role. 

The Saint Strikes Back provides a striking introduction for Sanders as Simon Templar. No sooner are we presented with the perceptive gaze of Templar spotting an assassination in the offing during a ritzy New Year’s Eve party, then the would-be assassin gets shot, the dead man’s beautiful accomplice makes for the exit, she is intercepted on the street by Templar, and during his smooth barrage of quips he reveals that he is the assassin’s assassin, and none other than the Saint, while he does his brash best to charm and tease her at the same time. 

That scene perfectly demonstrates what the George Sanders style of his Saint is all about. I find Sanders’ somehow-relaxed, rapid-fire delivery of witty banter mingled with his one-step-ahead-of-everyone-else trickery to be as amusing as a great Marx Brothers routine. Even if my head is spinning trying to keep track of the alliances and deceptions between characters in the story, Sanders’ wry manner ensures that I still enjoy the ride on this mystery merry-go-round. 

Of course George Sanders had a long acting career, often playing smooth-talking cads, and he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1950’s All About Eve. The Saint’s creator, author Leslie Charteris, was often very critical of the various media adaptations of his hero. He seemed quite unhappy with George Sanders as Simon Templar. As is often the case, film adaptations take liberties with their source material and must succeed with the audience on their own merits. Perhaps Charteris felt that both Sanders’ performance and Hollywood’s Motion Picture Production Code smoothed over the most ruthless edge of his character. Nevertheless, we are still provided with a hero in the Sanders films that often operates just outside the law, even as he aids it to see justice done. 

Returning from the previous Louis Hayward starring film is the character of New York Police Inspector Henry Fernack played by Jonathan Hale. Fernack provides a lot of humor, usually at his own expense, as he is alternately assisted and confounded by the daring and elusive Simon Templar. While Fernack is always suspicious of the Saint’s true motives, he is also an admirer of the Saint’s abilities used to defeat criminals in the past. No matter how irritated Fernack becomes with some of the Saint’s subterfuge, he can always be convinced one more time to aid the Saint’s crime-busting schemes. 

Wendy Barrie co-stars as the vengeful Val Travers. She is allying herself with crooks to expose and kill those who framed her father and drove him to suicide. Not only her beauty, but also her outside-the-law determination to see that her father is avenged appeals to Simon Templar. Her steely determination is initially immune to Templar’s charm, and she is only slowly won over by his efforts to expose the criminals she is also after. Barrie would appear in two more of the Sanders-starring Saint films as different characters. When RKO shifted George Sanders into the hero role of Gay Laurence/The Falcon in a similar series of mystery films, Wendy Barrie would also star as his love-interest in two of them. 

Another very familiar face to lovers of crime fighter series is Neil Hamilton as Valerie Travers’ smitten accomplice, Allan Breck. Hamilton would gain lasting fame late in his acting career as Police Commissioner Gordon on the Batman television series (1966-68). In two episodes of that show’s first season, Hamilton would be joined by George Sanders as the first actor to play the villain Mr. Freeze. 

The 1930s launched many film series featuring sleuths of all sorts. Many probably considered the Saint films just more of the same. Yet these jaunty flicks were distinguished by George Sanders’ assured performance as a witty and quick-witted hero that dealt with crime as if it was just a lark.

THE HAND (1981)

Director: Oliver Stone

Writers: Oliver Stone adapting Marc Brandel’s novel The Lizard’s Tail

Producer: Edward R. Pressman; Cast: Michael Caine, Andrea Marcovicci, Annie McEnroe, Bruce McGill, Mara Hobel, Viveca Lindfors, Rosemary Murphy, Charles Fleischer, Pat Corley, Nicholas Hormann, John Stinson, Ed Marshall, Richard Altman, Sparky Watt, Oliver Stone, Tracey Walter, Brian Kenneth Hume, Lora Pearson, Jack Evans, Scott Evans, Randy Evans, Patrick Evans 

When comic strip artist Jon Lansdale (Michael Caine) loses his right hand in a freak driving accident, he not only loses his drawing ability; he also is losing the bond with his family and may be losing his mind. Lansdale has blackouts and hallucinations of hand imagery. He also senses that his missing hand has a life of its own and that it can kill those who offend him. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

The response that writer-director Oliver Stone’s second feature film usually gets from the audience is the sound of one hand clapping, but The Hand gets a hearty round of applause from me. It has fine performances from a small cast in a story dealing with the mental turmoil of its main character. When none other than Michael Caine plays that character, it results in a moving, intriguing, and gripping film. 

The spectacle of a severed hand scuttling about to kill people is what the audience was probably primed to see, yet it is also a phenomenon that we are constantly challenged to decide just how literally to accept. We experience the story almost completely from the viewpoint of the Michael Caine character of Jon Lansdale. He would qualify as the cinematic version of the unreliable narrator in prose fiction. He has suffered an injury that has not only cost him his right hand; it has ruined his career as a comic strip artist and is a blow to his male ego. He is no longer as complete a physical man as before, he is self-conscious of his appearance and lack of dexterity, and his ability to earn a living is now hindered. Since his wife, Anne (Andrea Marcovicci), was driving the car when his maiming accident occurred, that can only exacerbate Lansdale’s resentment of her in their troubled marriage. All of these stressors take a toll on Lansdale’s temperament, and we are left to ponder if Lansdale’s sanity is also damaged. 

Jon Lansdale’s comic strip, Mandro, was about the fantasy world adventures of a sword-wielding barbarian. Lansdale seemed to be venting his own single-minded and macho tendencies through his art. Once he loses the hand he needs to draw his Mandro stories, his inner barbarian has nowhere to go. This sudden handicap would traumatize anyone, but Lansdale’s own sense of his manhood and control in his family is the chink in his psychological armor that has been breached. In a great performance, Michael Caine brings an appealing humanity, vulnerability, and intensity to his role as Jon Lansdale. We always identify with the poor guy’s plight, even if we are unsure of his grip on reality and whether he can be blamed for the horror he senses. 

While we also ponder the responsibility that Jon Lansdale has for the dysfunction in his relationship with Anne, it becomes clear that she is not being entirely upfront with her husband about what she really wants to do. She says that she has discussed things with him, but one always gets the feeling that there is something more she has in mind that she won’t tell her unreceptive husband about. Anne is not just a one-note victim or a bitch. She seems like a reasonable person that is probably afraid to be completely open with Jon about her dissatisfaction in their relationship. In her defense, Anne tries to be comforting to Jon after the loss of his hand, but it also seems that she is ready to move on. 

Once the Lansdale couple separates so that Jon can move to California to take a teaching job for a community college art class, we can appreciate Jon Lansdale trying to make a new life for himself. We still hold out hope that he can mend his relationship with Anne, who is staying in New York City with their daughter. However, it becomes more apparent that his family is drifting apart. 

Therefore, we can’t help but be happy for Lansdale when he gets the chance to fool around with Stella Roche, one of his sexier students. We don’t find out a lot about Stella, but Annie McEnroe’s performance makes us care about this directionless and impulsive young lady. She may just be a free spirit doing what ever feels good in the moment, but she is also just the ego boost the estranged Jon Lansdale needs. It probably helps that Stella seems to fetishize Lansdale’s prosthetic hand during their lovemaking. Lansdale seems to develop an immediate bond with Stella, but whether this can ever approach real love or is just Lansdale’s possessiveness is uncertain.

One of Lansdale’s fellow faculty members, Brian Ferguson (Bruce McGill), teaches psychology at the community college. Over beers at the local bar, Ferguson hands out insight on Lansdale’s mental blackouts. Of course, this does nothing to dispel Lansdale’s concerns, or ours, about his mental state. Drinking pal Ferguson also soon becomes another antagonist in Lansdale’s lonely existence. 

The pattern in our one-handed hero’s life seems to be that no one ever really gets close to him. The one person we ever saw Jon Lansdale mutually, truly happy with was his daughter, Lizzie (Mara Hobel), before his estranged wife separated her from him. Once the family reunites in Jon’s cabin in the woods for the yuletide season, it becomes clear that Anne is making other arrangements for her life and Lizzie’s. This ends up being one of those unbearable, just-going-through-the-motions, Christmas family get-togethers. They better crank up the carols and keep spiking the eggnog. 

As Lansdale gets more stressed and offended, he not only has more hallucinations, he also imagines that his severed hand is lurking about and can snuff out his enemies. That lost limb had manifested Lansdale’s machismo by illustrating his Mandro stories. Now that it is no longer attached to Lansdale, that missing hand may be acting out darker aggressions from the frustrated Lansdale’s id. 

Writer-director Oliver Stone’s first feature was his 1974 horror film, Seizure. After this second effort, Stone decided that he wasn’t suited to the genre. I think he does a fine job with The Hand. Stone was probably disappointed with the generally poor reception that the film received. That reception was probably due to the ambiguity that it leaves us with. You may have a handle on what is going on here until you get to the film’s final scene. Then you are presented with a bit of sleight-of-hand that tosses our assumptions back in our faces to make us try to sort things out all over again. Audiences probably found it maddening, but that is the theme running throughout the entire film. I have learned to appreciate it more over time because there are two interpretations one can arrive at, and either one works. The Hand deserves a lot more thumbs up.

PLAY MISTY FOR ME (1971)

Director: Clint Eastwood

Writers: Jo Heims, Dean Riesner

Producer: Robert Daley

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter, Donna Mills, John Larch, James McEachin, Don Siegel (as Donald Siegel), Clarice Taylor, Jack Ging, Irene Hervey, Britt Lind (as Brit Lind), Duke Everts, Jack Kosslyn, George Fargo, Tim Frawley, Otis Kadani, Mervin W. Frates, Paul E. Lippman, Ginna Patterson, Malcolm Moran, (and jazz musicians as themselves) Cannonball Adderley and Johnny Otis 

Dave Garver (Clint Eastwood) is the evening disc jockey at KRML, a jazz radio station in Carmel, California. One of his frequent callers is a woman who always requests that Garver play the song “Misty.” After his shift one night, Garver stops at his favorite local bar and meets a woman named Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter). Garver takes Evelyn home and she reveals that she went to the bar hoping to meet Garver since he had mentioned on his program that he hung out there. Garver realizes that Evelyn is the listener who always requests “Misty.” The two spend the night together. What Garver thought would be just a casual fling leads to Evelyn obsessing over him and disrupting his life. Garver soon reunites with Tobie Williams (Donna Mills), a past lover that he feels serious about. This drives Evelyn to increasingly erratic and dangerous behavior. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut is one of this Eastwood fan’s favorites. In Play Misty for Me, we see Eastwood’s typical manner applied to a character and situation much different than the crime thrillers and Westerns he is most associated with. This movie delivers a different kind of tension due to Eastwood’s character not being accustomed to a life of violence. 

During a 17-year acting career, Clint Eastwood had learned a few things behind the camera and knew how to relate to actors. Eastwood formed Malpaso Productions in 1968 and had begun starring in his own film projects. Everything really seemed to come together for his directorial debut, Play Misty for Me. Eastwood had been in the business long enough to have established some industry relationships for the talents he needed to collaborate with, he had made a marketable international name for himself as an actor, and Universal Pictures had already distributed three of his Malpaso Productions’ films. Therefore, Eastwood was able to secure a deal with Universal Pictures to distribute his first film with him as director. 

Play Misty for Me is far more than just a vanity project. Eastwood really delivers with an intimate and leisurely paced film that continues ratcheting up the complications and suspense to make for an intense and entertaining movie. 

This story’s role for Clint Eastwood gives him a chance to be a guy with an ideal lifestyle. He seems a bit more carefree at the start of the film than most of his other film characters, yet we are still treated to some of Eastwood’s typically terse wit. It is fun to see Eastwood play someone who is not an action hero get ensnared in an increasingly dangerous situation. His Dave Garver character is just a promiscuous disc jockey that has one too many one-night stands. You can’t blame the guy for being tempted by so much opportunity. With his looks, a classic Jaguar, and a real swingin’ bachelor pad, the Carmel-by-the-sea jazz DJ is bound to land plenty of ladies who are begging to be on his playlist. 

Casual sex quickly turns into crazy stalking from Dave Garver’s number one fan, Evelyn Draper. As the groupie from hell, Jessica Walter gives one helluva performance. She displays sentimentality and devotion that is so desperate it ultimately makes her seem rather pathetic. Initially, Evelyn seems sweet and naive, but she manages to manipulate confident stud Dave Garver. At first, Garver thinks that he is the one in control, but hooking up with Evelyn was just what she intended and she reels him in with her seemingly casual attitude about having sex immediately. There is always the risk of emotional entanglements when physical intimacy is involved. When Garver’s latest catch does not want to be released, she goes off the deep end and tries to capsize his entire life. Before long Garver feels “smothered.” 

Donna Mills plays Tobie Williams, the lady with whom Dave Garver had a recent relationship that he wants to renew. She is reserved, levelheaded, and a bit reluctant to start up again with the randy disc jockey, but Garver is persistent, has a way with words, and looks like Clint Eastwood, so he just can’t miss. Unfortunately, Garver had started taking more requests than just playing records from Evelyn Draper… 

This film’s main cast is pretty small, but there are other characters that help to dilute the tension before it starts to build again. Their humorous interaction with Eastwood’s Dave Garver not only entertains; it also helps to expand the audience perception of Eastwood as more than just a badass movie hero. Frequent Eastwood director Don Siegel takes the role of Murphy, the bartender at Dave Garver’s favorite hangout. James McEachin is full of witty banter, on-air and off, as Sweet Al Monte, Garver’s fellow disc jockey. Garver gets more teasing from Clarice Taylor as his cleaning lady, Birdie. Police officer Sgt. McCallum, played by John Larch, is the authority figure that has to help deal with Garver’s stalker problem and reminds us that Eastwood’s character is just another citizen in trouble. 

This film takes its time to establish the picturesque Carmel, California setting, Dave Garver’s lifestyle, and the gradual renewal of love between Garver and Tobie. Director Eastwood indulges in what amounts to a musical intermission with Roberta Flack’s song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face“ playing during a lengthy montage of Dave Garver and Tobie Williams strolling and making love in the solitude of nature. This is followed up with attendance at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Some probably thought that first-time director Eastwood was just being self-indulgent, but this musical recess brings us down from an outbreak of insanity and makes us happy that Eastwood’s character has started to find some new joy in his life. We are given time to relax and become comfortable and hopeful that things are going Garver’s way after the conflicts he has had with Evelyn, which were becoming evermore alarming. 

Play Misty for Me spins us a twisted love triangle that has a little added bite in the midst of the sexual revolution era. At that time, people became more upfront about indulging their lust and openly skipped the responsibility of attachment before getting it on. Once some of them had been making it with the right person, they may have sought something more meaningful and lasting. The ongoing problem is that not all sexual partners evaluate feelings the same way or have the same motives. Play Misty for Me deals with the free love scene’s worst-case scenario: Hell hath no fury like a groupie scorned.

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932), aka THE HOUNDS OF ZAROFF

Directors: Ernest B. Schoedsack, Irving Pichel

Writers: James Ashmore Creelman adapting Richard Connell’s 1924 short story

Producers: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedack

Cast: Joel McCrea, Leslie Banks, Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Noble Johnson, Steve Clemente (as Steve Clemento), William B. Davidson, Dutch Hendrian, (and uncredited cast) Phil Tead, Hale Hamilton, Arnold Gray, James Flavin, Landers Stevens, Wesley Hopper 

When a yacht crashes into a reef and sinks just off the South American coast, its lone survivor, Bob Rainsford (Joel McCrea), is washed ashore on a small jungle island. He makes his way inland to the castle of Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks). The Russian Count is an avid hunter and recognizes Rainsford as an author and hunting authority. The Count has two other guests who are also recent shipwreck survivors, siblings Eve and Martin Trowbridge (Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong). The cordial Count soon reveals that the lighted buoys around his island meant to guide ships past the reefs are moved to cause the vessels to crash and sink. Zaroff uses any surviving castaways on his island as human prey to provide a greater challenge for his hunting mania. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

While the filmmaking dynamic duo of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack were working on their elaborate and special effects-filled epic King Kong (1933) at RKO Radio Pictures, they decided to multi-task. They adapted the O. Henry Award-winning Richard Connell short story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” to be shot during pauses in King Kong’s lengthy production. They would utilize King Kong’s jungle sets and have four of its cast (Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Noble Johnson, and Steve Clemente) play roles in The Most Dangerous Game film during breaks in the King Kong shooting schedule. 

While this all seems like it might be biting off even more than King Kong could chew, Cooper and Schoedsack succeeded in simultaneously making two classic movies of pre-Code horror. Of course, King Kong is an innovative, effects-driven extravaganza with one of the most famous movie monsters of all time, while The Most Dangerous Game is an intense and compact thriller with one of the most memorable fiends in cinema history. 

The Most Dangerous Game film incorporates most of the details from Richard Connell’s short story and elaborates upon them. Most of the changes involve even more action, which also help to add a bit to the movie’s running time that still just barely steps over the hour mark. This is a film that doesn’t have a bit of waste. The only recess from danger is there to set the remote, exotic scene and establish the twisted motive that results in murderous sport. 

Another addition to Connell’s story for the film is a beautiful woman. As Robert Armstrong’s character of Carl Denham stated in King Kong, “The public, bless ‘em, must have a pretty face to look at.” We can’t complain when filmmaker Denham finds Ann Darrow to provide that pretty face for his film. Here in The Most Dangerous Game, we can’t complain when we get that same beauty provided by ’30s scream queen Fay Wray. However, Wray’s Eve Trowbridge is not just a romance plot device. Things are so frantic that there is not even time for Eve and Bob Rainsford to make goo-goo eyes at each other. She is there to act as a psychosexual kink in Count Zaroff’s hunting ritual. Zaroff intends to celebrate by using Eve as his prize once he succeeds in hunting down and killing Rainsford. Just as Zaroff needed to avoid boredom by choosing man as a more challenging prey to hunt, he also needs to refine his ritualistic pleasure even further with the reward of rape. 

Another pre-Code atrocity distinguishes The Most Dangerous Game. The film version makes explicit a grisly spectacle that is just hinted at by a single sentence in Connell’s short story. Once we enter Zaroff’s trophy room, there is no doubt that the Count is an obsessed madman. We know at that point that there is no reasoning with Zaroff. He makes the rules and will compel his guests to play. 

As Count Zaroff, Leslie Banks is one of my favorite villains. We immediately know from his eccentric manner, his weird castle in the jungle, and his intimidating servants that his hospitality may not be so comfortable. My favorite scene is Zaroff socializing with his guests as he is leading up to the subject of his “new sensation.” It is a wonderful tease of the horror to come. Banks is such a consummate fiend in this film that it is surprising he did not wind up typecast as only villains for the rest of his career. Just two years later, he would star as the hero of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). 

Bob Rainsford is an early starring role for Joel McCrea. Initially, the young man seems almost naïve, yet this is probably due to Rainsford not having the manner we expect of most action film heroes. McCrea’s Rainsford is free of swagger and cynicism, yet his experience as a hunter means he will be a worthy adversary for the bloodthirsty Count Zaroff. It is also much more satisfying to see the good-natured Rainsford’s change of attitude late in the film. 

The decade’s most famous damsel in distress, Fay Wray, was in the midst of her five back-to-back panic attacks. Although she had a very long filmography, she is certainly most revered by horror buffs for the run of fright flicks she starred in from 1932 to 1933. Without a doubt, her King Kong role of Ann Darrow assured her film immortality, but her other four horror films are also great fun. Her beauty and charm can’t help but enhance everything she appears in. As Eve Trowbridge, she gives our hero Bob Rainsford even more motivation to try beating Count Zaroff at his own game. 

Fay Wray’s King Kong co-star Robert Armstrong really slays me as Martin Trowbridge. As Eve’s boozin’ brother, he is too blind drunk to see the hints of danger that his sober sister tries to warn Rainsford about. Since Martin is perpetually pickled, perhaps Zaroff’s plans for him are appropriate. 

If anyone that looks like Noble Johnson answers the door, you know you’ve got the wrong address. He played the Chief of the natives on Skull Island in King Kong. Here he’s also up to no good on Count Zaroff’s island as his mute, torture-happy henchman Ivan. 

Yet another Skull Island native is also moonlighting as Zaroff’s hired help. Steve Clemente was the Witch King in King Kong. He’s in cahoots with Noble Johnson here, as well. As Zaroff’s servant Tartar, knife-throwing specialist Clemente makes things just as dangerous inside Zaroff’s castle as out in the jungle. 

While King Kong is rightly lauded for its innovations in special effects, some of those techniques are also employed in this film to create the eerie and dangerous environment on Count Zaroff’s island. Even before the hunt is on, there is an ominous aura established in the jungle as we first view Zaroff’s castle. A lot of ingenuity is employed to turn the RKO sets into a deep and nightmarish jungle world. 

Max Steiner’s film score for King Kong was far more extensive than in most early talkies and prompted the industry to make music a more integral element in film production. Since Steiner also provided The Most Dangerous Game with a lengthy and effective score, I think it can be considered just as filmically innovative. This music was used in a film being made at the same time as King Kong, but was released one year earlier. 

This was the movie that introduced the man-hunting-man routine, which has been explored in many films since but never topped. With its perverse and psychotic villain, exotic and remote setting, efficient storytelling, and escalating danger, The Most Dangerous Game is worth tracking down.