Review of The Saint's Double Trouble (1940) by Allan C — 05 Sep 2012

The 4th film in RKO's series of Simon Templar films, and the third one to star George Sanders. This one is a bit of a silly adventure compared with what had gone and what was to come, but it doesn't last long, (The Saint films rarely last over 70 minutes), but it manages to be fun while it lasts.

Simon Templar (Sanders) is believed to be in Cairo, but when he turns up in Philadelphia at the house of his friend Professor Horatio T. Bitts (Thomas W. Ross), and Bitts believes that Templar is in trouble.

Bitt has just received a coffin containing the mummified remains of a pharaoh. However, the police have been looking for a man who is identical to Templar, and has been committing jewel thefts, diamond smuggling and other misdemeanors.

Templar's double turns out to be Boss Duke Bates (Sanders again), and Templar soon finds himself being chased by the police, including New York Inspector Fernack (Jonathan Hale) is on his tail again.

But, matters are further complicated when Professor Bitts turns up dead and Templar ends up being chased down for that. It's a very confusing film, but Sanders is as good as ever. There's an amusing cameo from Bela Lugosi as a gangster just known as The Partner, who has something to do with the diamond smuggling.

For B-Movies, these were quite well filmed, and look quite lavish even if they were done on the cheap.