Thu 11 Jan 2018
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: THE LONE WOLF SPY HUNT (1939).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[9] Comments
THE LONE WOLF SPY HUNT. Columbia, 1939. Warren William (Michael Lanyard), Ida Lupino, Rita Hayworth, Virginia Weidler, Ralph Morgan. Screenplay by Jonathan Latimer, based on the novel Red Masquerade (Doubleday, 1921) by Louis Joseph Vance. Director: Peter Godfrey. Shown at Cinevent 26, Columbus OH, May 1994.
Warren William is, as I have pointed out before, one of the great favorites of film convention audiences (both Cinevent and Cinefest), so his stint in The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt was eagerly awaited by the conventioneers. Well, everybody has an off day, and it appeared to me that Williams’ dapper suavity was showing its age and formulaic quality here.
He was not helped by co-star Ida Lupino, an intelligent actress requited to throw ignored girl friend fits that were noisy but sour rather than funny or wry. Lupino was uneven as an actress, sometimes betrayed by her natural ability to command attention whatever she did, even when it seemed out of key with the movie.
Virginia Weidler was arch as Williams’s precocious daughter (a role she patented in The Philadelphia Story), although the writer of the program notes thought her “delightful.” A reminder that not all “B” movies were little gems.
January 11th, 2018 at 10:00 pm
Could not disagree more about this one. I guess that’s what makes race hires.
January 11th, 2018 at 10:08 pm
Race hires?
January 11th, 2018 at 10:11 pm
I’ve not seen this one, so I can’t really weigh in, but to my mind any movie with both Ida Lupino and Rita Hayworth in it is well worth getting my hands (and eyes) on. Just to see for myself.
January 12th, 2018 at 12:41 am
At the time of production Ida was married to Louis Hayward. In the mid-fifties he would star in the Lone Wolf television series. And he also found a wolf cub on Pacific Coast Highway and brought it home to live. So, there really was a lone wolf in their lives.
January 12th, 2018 at 9:09 am
Everyone at the club is asking: What’s a race hire?
January 12th, 2018 at 12:02 pm
Check it out for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvR9CHQfEAE&t=22s
January 12th, 2018 at 12:11 pm
Thanks, Michael!
January 13th, 2018 at 12:08 am
Race hires is what spell check thinks horse races means.
January 13th, 2018 at 12:45 am
I should have guessed that!