THE SAINT IN NEW YORK (1938) ** Is this a Masonic recruiting flick for the blue collar bar set or what? Louis Hayward (not quite as appropriately named as Hugh Sinclair, in later Saint flicks) plays a character named Simon Templar, whose disdain for conformity goes straight to the convergence of wanton violence and situational ethics. Mr. Templar prefers to resolve problems through the crushing of individual components. It's all for the common good, he says, as he foments revolution in South America and goes after every non-Italian mob in New York. He flaunts a cavalier approach to collateral damage, the criminal code, and truth. It's all very Baghdad. Glorified vigilantism by a protagonist who doesn't know much about what he's getting into, doesn't understand the currents swirling around him, and only cares from the limited perspective of the one who gave him orders. The rugged individualism of blind faith. Is the world a better place for it, or is it a self-serving rationalization for artificially liberating oneself from universal fraternal bonds in the pursuit of self-aggrandizement? Or neither or both.
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