The First Rebel (1939) (aka Allegheny Uprising)

A time waster I only watched for the cast; it is an interesting look at how not to make a John Wayne film.

Wayne plays the real-life frontiersman James Smith. He clashes with a group of underhanded traders who start selling arms to the Natives in 18th century colonial America.

The star has bags of charisma, but the script has far too much clunky expositional dialogue, and he works better with less to say. The John Wayne character is already coming into shape. A loner, a leader, brave, intelligent, always does the right thing. No ambiguities. Does not answer to anyone

The two main co-stars are suitably slimy. George Sanders is an incompetent martinet colonial soldier, while Brian Donlevy is the businessman so unscrupulous, he will even trade with the British AND the Indians. When I say Indians, I mean white guys in Mohican wigs. Smith and his posse black up for a revenge attack on the Indians, but this is historically accurate.

The supporting characters are forgettable. Claire Trevor as Janie MacDougall is the never-going-to-happen love interest of Smith, and the best thing about Wilfrid Lawson as "Mac" MacDougall is his "och aye" Scottish accent.

Competently but unimaginatively filmed, The First Rebel suffers from a lack of action, and peeters out into a stiff courtroom drama.

Interestingly, it was banned at first in the UK by the Ministry of Information for portraying the British in a bad light.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

The first film to pair Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, The Hound of the Baskervilles is great fun, with a fast paced story, two perfect actors in the lead roles and lashings of spooky foggy atmosphere.

Sticking closely to the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle, the story sees Holmes and Watson investigating the legend of a deadly supernatural beast that has been haunting the Baskerville family for hundreds of years. After his Charles Baskerville is found dead, his face twisted in horror and giant paw marks near the body, his nephew Henry, the last of the line, inherits the family estate – but has he inherited the family curse? Or is there a more down-to-earth explanation?

Moviegoers in the 1930s had no shortage of detectives to watch, such as The Thin Man, Bulldog Drummond, The Saint, Charlie Chan and Mr Moto. One element of The Hound of the Baskervilles that makes it stand out from these is one that we might take for granted nowadays, which is the fact that it is set in the Victorian era it was originally written in, rather than the time it was released in.

Another factor that sets The Hound of the Baskervilles aside from other contemporaries is that, as well as a detective story, it is a wonderfully spooky Gothic tale, with a crumbling mansion, a seemingly supernatural beast and fog shrouded moors, all of which translate perfectly to the screen, with an ambience reminiscent of the classic Universal horror films. It is perhaps not surprising that Hammer chose this same tale to follow up their Dracula and Frankenstein films.

Of course, a detective story is only as good as the detective and thankfully we have one of the best portrayals of Holmes ever. Rathbone is a dead ringer for the Holmes depicted in the Sidney Paget illustrations that accompanied the original publication, but he also brings a steely determination and energy to the part, and makes such an impact that it is easy to forget that the character is absent from most of the middle third of the story.

Nigel Bruce's take on Watson has come in for some stick over the years and there is no denying that this is a far more buffoonish than the book version. However, in his defence, Watson does have to be slightly behind events so that Holmes has someone to explain things to for the benefit of the audience, and in addition, there is no shortage of the other essential traits we associate with the character, the tenacity and loyalty.

Rounding out the films credentials as a work of horror is the supporting cast of suspicious characters, featuring no less than John Carradine as the Baskerville butler, a man who could read a shopping list and make it sound like a sinister threat, and Lionel Attwill as Dr Mortimer, the man who brings the whole matter to Holmes in the first place for reasons that seem unclear. Attwill usually gets typecast as sinister or sleazy villains and it is not surprising that he would go on to play Holmes nemesis Professor Moriarty in the later Rathbone film Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon.

Making less of an impression is Sir Henry Baskerville himself, played by future TV Robin of Sherwood Richard Greene, although perhaps that is more a case of being overshadowed by the charisma and talent of the rest of the cast. In a sign perhaps of how little 20th Century Fox anticipated the success of the film, and the chances of any sequels, Greene actually gets star billing on the poster, over Rathbone and Bruce, despite this only being his second movie outing.

All of this is helped by a script that sticks to the basic storyline and zips along a good pace, intriguing without being confusing, while still leaving time to learn about something of the character of Holmes and soak up the glorious gloomy atmosphere of Grimpen Mire.

The Saint in London (1939)

The second film to feature George Sanders as Simon Templar, a sort of modern day Robin Hood, The Saint in London is a breezy, enjoyable, lightweight romp.

The plot sees Templar back in England, and getting a tip-off from a friend in British Intelligence about a foreign government official who seems to be caught in a plot by a gang to print millions in illegal bank notes. Things get complicated when the gang kidnap Templar's female sidekick - can he rescue the girl and the money before it is too late?

George Sanders is excellent, as he nearly always was, although the role of Simon Templar allows him to display genuine charm, without the sinister undertones found in some of his later roles.

The move by Templar back to his home country is a slight let down, as it does make you realise that part of the fun of the previous entry, The Saint Strikes Back was watching the fish-out-of-water effortlessly deal with the foreign culture as much as the crime. Back on his home turf of 1930s London, he presents less of a contrast. There is also little challenge to him from the story, which is not really a whodunit, but simply involves Templar finding people and sorting a situation out. Fortunately, the main villains are a good match for him, both in brains and wit, and can be funny without seeming laughable.

The criminal element of Templar’s character is played down somewhat, although the film does start with him pickpocketing a pickpocket, Duggan, an American man who instantly goes on to become his helper. His reasons for being in London seem a little vague, but I assume the studio thought that, with the Saint being back in England, they ought to include one American accent for the Stateside audiences, and the character does get some of the best one liners (“Tell me, what part of the states are you from? Sing Sing?” “Nah, San Quentin”)

Templar's other sidekick is Polly Parker, played by Sally Gray, who, as well as conveniently getting Templar out of a couple of scrapes, also gets some good dialogue, and Gray's quirky, daffy energy makes a good contrast with smooth, charming Sanders. Also worth a mention is Gordon McLeod as the henpecked Scotland Yard detective (and frequent Templar adversary) Claude Teal, who has a running gag of some very funny phone exchanges with his unseen wife.

If anything this film feels more like an episode of the Saint television series that Roger Moore would find fame with in the 60s, particularly with the short running time, and fast pace. Also, as on an established TV show, there is a lack of any back-story for the main character, assuming that we are familiar enough with him to dive straight in.

There is a link to the other character that Moore would enjoy huge worldwide success with, that of James Bond. Although there are differences in the characters and in the nature of the stories, there are also some elements that foreshadow Bond, certainly the cinema incarnation. Both characters are English, unflappable, charming, but will be forceful, even violent, when needed, and they do not always work within the law. They both start stories on their own, but end up paired with a female companion, who they end up having to rescue, and at one point, the Saint even introduces himself as “Templar. Simon Templar”.

The Saint Strikes Back (1939)

Before Roger Moore made the part of Simon Templar his own in the 1960s TV series, the smooth talking gentleman thief and amateur sleuth appeared in a series of B pictures made by RKO. After putting Louis Hayward in the title role for The Saint In New York, the studio switched for the effortlessly debonair George Sanders for the follow up, The Saint Strikes Back.

Loosely based on the novel Angels of Doom, by Saint creator Leslie Charteris, the plot sees Templar come to the aid of the daughter of a San Francisco police officer, a man who committed suicide after being framed by a mysterious gangster. Can our hero clear the name of the innocent party, and unmask the crook?

George Sanders is one of those actors who nearly always plays a variation on the "George Sanders" character, someone who is charming, witty, and impervious to the doubts and emotions that plague us mere mortals. Unlike later films such as The Picture of Dorian Gray or All About Eve, the "George Sanders" here lacks the malevolent edge of Lord Henry or Addison DeWitt, which is in keeping with the roguish but basically decent character of Simon Templar, but is slightly less fun to watch.

I have seen The Saint described as a "Robin Hood-like" character, but if anything he seems like a precursor to Dr Who, someone whose motives are vague and wanders into situations seemingly by accident, solving problems, charming the authorities, then disappearing off into the sunset with no material reward.

The rest of the cast are competent enough, with significant roles given to Jerome Cowan, who would be immortalised as Miles Archer, the doomed partner of Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, and Neil Hamilton, later to play Commissioner Gordon on the Batman TV show.

The direction from John Farrow is also competent and workmanlike, with no expressionistic or artistic flourishes, apart from one brief and unexpected scene of a policeman having a nightmare about lobsters on trapezes. Farrow works hard to convince us we are in the City by the Bay, with some nicely foggy ambience. Screenwriter John Twist moves the action here from the original novel's English setting, and packs the dense screenplay with plenty of twists and turns, and some witty dialogue.

An enjoyable bit of fun, The Saint Strikes Back ends on a slightly downbeat note. For all Templar's cool, detached persona, at the end we are left with the impression of a lonely man and the final scene sees him quoting Kipling (“he travels fastest who travels alone”) before the camera tracks back, leaving a solitary Templar, leaning on a lamppost in the fog, whistling in a slightly resigned, almost melancholy fashion.