Sat 27 May 2023
Mystery Movie Review: THE LONE WOLF SPY HUNT (1939).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[10] Comments
THE LONE WOLF SPY HUNT. Columbia Pictures, 1939. Warren William (Michael Lanyard), Ida Lupino, Rita Hayworth, Virginia Weidler, Ralph Morgan, Tom Dugan, Don Beddoe. Screenplay: Jonathan Latimer, based upon a story by Louis Joseph Vance. Directed by Peter Godfrey.
This was the first in a series of nine films that Warren William starred in as the reformed safe-cracker widely known as The Lone Wolf. There were eleven before this one, including six from the silent era. I don’t know how consistent these movies were in terms of continuity, but this one starts off with Michael Lanyard “burdened†down with a daughter (possibly adopted), played most energetically by as extremely tomboyish Virginia Weidler. (*)
You may have also noticed the presence of both Ida Lupino (as an extremely jealous and overly clingy girl friend) and Rita Hayworth (as a villainess I’d love to have seen more of). Both were in the early stages of their respective careers. Who knew, back in 1939, how famous the two of them would turn out to be?
Warren William plays his role in the most urbane and cultured way possible, and of course his usual demeanor on the screen, as he deals with the considerable domestic uproars he faces in this film as easily as he does with the spies he is hunting, per the title.
At this late date the plot doesn’t amount to much: spies trying to obtain some secrete military plans. One way of doing so, they hope, is to frame Lanyard into working for them by leaving one of his signature cigarettes at the scene of another crime.
There is more emphasis on the comedy this time around than there is an actual mystery, including the aforementioned domestic uproars, a hapless butler, and a couple of hardworking but dumb cops. All in fun, of course, and a good time is had by all.
Including me.
(*) I note for the record that there was a silent film from 1919 entitled The Lone Wolf’s Daughter. Any connection? I have no idea. I await enlightenment.
May 27th, 2023 at 11:06 pm
I have read several of the Original stories and novels, and nothing reflects the work of Louis Joseph Vance, at least not in the sound era. The character of Michael Lanyard is French and a former jewel thief. There was a novel called The LoneWolf’s Son, never actually filmed, but stolen by Allolan Dwan n 1935 with Edmund Lowe, Tom Brown, and Claire Trevor, Black Sheep. It was good – more than simply watchable. Louis Hayward did the televison series in 1954 and 55.
Hayward did not play Lanyard as continental or a jewel thief. He channeled Jack Webb, and if that seems wrong, it was. A few points related to the series and me. Oh, and I came along not quite ten years later.
June Hayward commented that wished I had been with Louis when they were shooting, but Louis thought I was just a little boy at that time. A teenager, but true, and I knew instinctively what was wrong. Easy to fix. Louis’s final thought, he wished he ahd never gone into television.
May 27th, 2023 at 11:47 pm
THE LONE WOLF SPY HUNT was based on an unpublished script for THE LONE WOLF’S DAUGHTER but Hollywood happened and the original script became unrecognizable.
Note also that, as a bachelor, Lanyard really should not have had a daughter in a family film; she did not appear in any of the later films.
May 27th, 2023 at 11:50 pm
In the novels, he had both a daughter and son by different wives. Easy enough to verify.
May 28th, 2023 at 12:35 am
Barry,
Michael Lanyard is an American orphaned in Paris and raised by an Irish criminal who teaches him all his skills on the mean streets of Paris in a somewhat Dickenisan manner.
His foster father’s fate is what convinces him to become a lone wolf and operate alone from his rooftop flat that can only be accessed by the skylight. Of course, a beautiful girl reforms him and he volunteers as a spy for the Allies in WW I in a never ending attempt to redeem himself.
FALSE FACES is an almost immediate sequel to THE LONE WOLF, with ALIAS and RED MASQUERADE (The story of his daughter) appearing in ’21 and the series taking a hiatus after ’23’s RETURNS.
Lanyard comes back in ’31’s THE LONE WOLF’S SON followed by ENCORE in ’33 and finally THE LONE WOLF’S LAST PROWL in ’34 (which I think involves a grandchild).
Vance is more novelistic than a genre writer despite his popularity in the pulps. By the time of the Lone Wolf he was primarily featured in the slicks where his books were popularized. Crime, adventure, and mystery often featured in his books. He was a common name on the bestseller lists of the time having graduated from the pulp adventures of Terence O’Rourke, Gentleman Adventurer in POPULAR MAGAZINE.
In the books Lanyard has a daughter and son, and unlike most such figures he ages naturally across the series run from one war nearly to the next.
I’m not sure if there are any short stories with Lanyard.
The books are fairly serious and Lanyard closer to Jack Boyle’s literary Boston Blackie in his struggle to clear his name than William’s casual easy going version.
Bert Lytel and Jack Holt were silent Lanyards, at least one movie more about a Rin Tin Tin wanna be than Lanyard. Melvyn Douglas played Lanyard in THE LONE WOLF RETURNS (forever confusing us by also starring in THE RETURN OF ARSENE LUPIN — to make matters worse with Warren William as the policeman after him).
I like the series, even toward the end the William/Blore byplay worked and the plots were fairly clever as Lanyard forever tries to clear his name after being falsely accused again, not without some justification usually considering Blore’s sticky fingers and Lanyard’s penchant for trouble.
Most of them are more comedy than mystery, but most also have more mystery plot than the entertaining SPY HUNT. Quite a few Columbia contract players made their way through the series including Forest Tucker and Lloyd Bridges.
I wasn’t too fond of the Gerald Mohr Lone Wolf films though I like Mohr, The Ron Randel films were much closer to the Williams model. I’ll give them this they went out on a higher note than the Falcon or the Saint.
May 28th, 2023 at 5:16 am
This marked a definite sharpening of the curve in the downward spiral of Warren William’s career — successful actors do not contract for “B” Movie series –and he handled it with the verve and professionalism that marked his best work at Warners and his subsequent parts at Monogram and PRC
May 28th, 2023 at 10:40 am
Double down on that, Dan.
May 28th, 2023 at 11:24 am
David, that is pretty good, but —
He is English, of unknown parentage and while taught the trade by the Irishman O’Rourke, he had what has been labeled in other places as a Dickensian childhood. Otherwise, we are on the same page.
Dan,
Of course, but I think of Warren William as a leading man, not a bankable movie star, and faced with living off capital or working, he made the rational choice. One other thing and this is speculative. His health would be in radical decline a few years later. It may be, he was in worse shape than any of us know. All these people who die prematurely, very likely have had suggestions of mortality
May 28th, 2023 at 8:37 pm
Barry,
So right.
One interesting thing about William is he was a great enthusiast of flying model planes with radio controls and during WW II he was called on to help the Army in regard to their use in wartime activity. He had a workshop on his estate and loaned it to the Army with his equipment as a starting point for their research.
His career had pretty much peaked by the mid Thirties, and he moved to playing Philo Vance and eventually the Lone Wolf and second leads in bigger films. Regardless of the film he brought his easy confidence and charm to the role. He is highly entertaining in the comedy THE OFFICE WIFE as Loretta Young’s boss and Tyrone Powers friend unaware Young is Powers wife.
It’s fairly evident his health isn’t great by the later Wolf entries, but he is still very much himself on screen, suave, witty, a bit sardonic, just a shade seedy, and with that just this side of a rascal persona that marked his best work in films like THREE ON A MATCH.
He is particularly good in RIO where he plays a character based on the French fraud STAVISKY (the basis of a film starring Jean Paul Belmondo and Charles Boyer).
He even survived the absolutely terrible second version of THE MALTESE FALCON, SATAN MET A LADY, as private eye Ted Shayne, his scenes with Bette Davis the only spark in the otherwise awful film.
May 30th, 2023 at 7:55 am
David,
Wasn’t that Basil Rathbone in RIO?
I am impressed by two of William’s last performances: The “Claudius” character in STRANGE ILLUSION, Edgar Ulmer’s version of HAMLET, done for pennies at PRC, and the “Inspector Porfiry” stand-in at Monogram for their version of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, thoughtfully called FEAR
May 31st, 2023 at 8:35 pm
Dan,
Abolutely right. I think I confused the two Philo Vances there.