The best George Sanders’s crime movies
George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was a British film and television actor, singer-songwriter, music composer, and author. His career as an actor spanned over forty years. His heavy upper-class English accent and smooth bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters. He is perhaps best known as Jack Favell in Rebecca (1940), Scott ffolliott in Foreign Correspondent (1940, a rare heroic part), The Saran of Gaza in Samson and Delilah (1949), the most popular film of the year, Addison DeWitt in All About Eve (1950, for which he won an Oscar), Sir Brian De Bois-Guilbert in Ivanhoe (1952), King Richard the Lionheart in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), Mr. Freeze in a two-parter episode of Batman (1966), the voice of the malevolent man-hating tiger Shere Khan in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967), the suave crimefighter The Falcon during the 1940s (a role eventually bequeathed to his elder brother, Tom Conway), and Simon Templar, The Saint, in five films made in the 1930s and 1940s.
A Shot in the Dark
7.4/10
Inspector Jacques Clouseau investigates the murder of Mr. Benjamin Ballon's driver at a country estate. A Shot in the Dark is the second and more successful film from the Pink Panther film series where both animated and real life sequences are mixed. A cult classic from Blake Edwards based on the play L’Idiot by Marcel Achard and Harry Kurnitz.
Warning Shot
6.7/10
Hounded by the press for shooting a doctor, an ousted Los Angeles policeman (David Janssen) works his own case.
Hangover Square
7.4/10
When composer George Harvey Bone wakes with no memory of the previous night and a bloody knife in his pocket, he worries that he has committed a crime. On the advice of Dr. Middleton, Bone agrees to relax, going to a music performance of singer Netta Longdon. Riveted by Netta, Bone agrees to write songs for her rather than his own concerto. However, Bone soon grows jealous of Netta and worries about controlling himself during his spells.
While the City Sleeps
6.9/10
Newspaper men compete against each other to find a serial killer dubbed "The Lipstick Killer"
A Scandal in Paris
6.6/10
A smooth-talking French thief (George Sanders) wangles his way into an important position as prefect of police.
Witness to Murder
6.6/10
A woman fights to convince the police that she witnessed a murder while looking out her bedroom window.
Endless Night
6/10
Shiftless dreamer Michael Rogers fantasizes about a lifestyle above his means and marries a wealthy, young girl who just came of age. They hire a famous architect to build their dream home amidst a series of suspicious incidents. The spouse has dark intentions toward his naive, inexperienced bride. Secrets from his past and sinister ties to their house guest Greta lead to a terrible turn of unexpected events.
Rage in Heaven
6.3/10
Robert Montgomery plays a jealous man who plots to fake his death and incriminate his wife's suspected lover.
The Quiller Memorandum
6.3/10
After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller is sent to Berlin to investigate.
The Gay Falcon
6.5/10
Having forsaken the detective business for the safer confines of personal insurance, Gay Laurence is compelled to return to his sleuthing ways. Along with sidekick Jonathan "Goldie" Locke, he agrees to look into a series of home party robberies that have victimized socialite Maxine Wood. The duo gets more than they bargained for when a murder is committed at Wood's home, but Lawrence still finds time to romance the damsel.
A Date with the Falcon
6.4/10
In the second film of the series (and not a second part of anything), Gay Lawrence, aka The Falcon, is about to depart the city to marry his fiancée, Helen Reed, when a mystery girl, Rita Mara, asks for his aid in disposing of a secret formula for making synthetic diamonds. He deliberately allows himself to be kidnapped by the gang for which Rita works. His aide, "Goldy" Locke, trails the kidnappers and brings the police. But the head of the gang escapes, and the Falcon continues the pursuit.
The Falcon Takes Over
6.4/10
While an escaped convict, Moose Malloy, goes in search of his ex-girlfriend Velma, police inspector Michael O'Hara attempts to track him assuming him to be a prime suspect for a number of mishaps.
Quiet Please, Murder
6.4/10
A forger steals and kills for a rare book from a library in order to make forgeries to sell to rich suckers.
The Falcon's Brother
6.4/10
A gentlemanly detective known as The Falcon calls on his brother to help him stop the Nazis from assassinating a key diplomat.
Mr. Moto's Last Warning
6.4/10
A Japanese man claiming to be Mr. Moto, of the International Police, is abducted and murdered soon after disembarking from a ship at Port Said in Egypt. The real Mr. Moto is already in Port Said, investigating a conspiracy against the British and French governments.
Cairo
5.4/10
MGM remake of Asphalt Jungle set in Egypt.
The Light Touch
5.9/10
An art thief tries to double cross his gangster boss.
The Saint In Palm Springs
6.2/10
George Sanders makes his final appearance as crook-turned-detective Simon Templar, a.k.a. "The Saint," in The Saint in Palm Springs. The gimmick in this one is a set of rare stamps, smuggled from England. Wendy Barrie is the true heir to this treasure, and the Saint is engaged to protect her and the stamps. Our hero meets Barrie in a posh Palm Springs resort, where a gang of homicidal thieves have converged to relieve the girl of her inheritance. Three murders and one kidnapping attempt later, the villains are foiled by the Saint, with the aid of his onetime partner in crime Pearly Gates (Paul Guilfoyle). The Saint in Palm Springs is the sixth in RKO's series of films based on the character created by Leslie Charteris.
The Saint Strikes Back
6.2/10
Suave private detective Simon "The Saint" Templar arrives in San Francisco and meets Val, a woman whose police inspector father killed himself after being accused of corruption and dismissed from the force. Convinced of the man's innocence, Templar takes it upon himself to vindicate the memory of Val's father. To do so he must take on the city's most dangerous criminal gang, while also battling hostile members of the police department.
Black Jack
5.7/10
A man who lost everything in the war now smuggles contraband into and out of Spain, but the law's closing in.
