The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date ** (1940, Warren William, Eric Blore as Jamison the Butler, Frances Robinson, Bruce Bennett, Thurston Hall) – Classic Movie Review 13,039

The 1940 American black and white mystery crime film The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date stars Warren William as the jewel thief turned private detective Michael Lanyard, Eric Blore as Jamison the Butler, Frances Robinson, Bruce Bennett, and Thurston Hall.

Director Sidney Salkow’s 1940 American black and white mystery crime film The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date stars Warren William as the jewel thief turned private detective Michael Lanyard, Eric Blore as Jamison the Butler, Frances Robinson, Bruce Bennett, and Thurston Hall.

It is Columbia Pictures’ sixth Lone Wolf film, starting with The Lone Wolf Returns (1935), and William’s fourth appearance of nine as the Lone Wolf, starting with The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (1939).

The Lone Wolf investigates a blackmail plot in Florida in a rather dull, flatly handled and slow-moving episode. In the seventh of his 15 outings, the Lone Wolf, again smoothly played by Warren William (in one of his nine films as the jewel thief turned private detective Michael Lanyard, aka the Lone Wolf), goes to the aid of rich girl Frances Robinson, abducted  by crooks on the way to pay for her boyfriend’s release from a Havana jail.

The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date is a somewhat tired, slightly witless adventure that is lacking in enough pace and style in a series starting to take on an over-familiar pattern. But it is down to the actors again to rescue it, and, yes, the polished star performance of Warren William, and the practised character actor turns, especially by Eric Blore as the butler, manage to save it.

However, it proved a hiccup, and the series soon recovered, with strong episodes The Lone Wolf Takes a Chance (1941) and Secrets of the Lone Wolf (1941) following immediately.

The cast are Warren William, Eric Blore, Frances Robinson, Bruce Bennett, Thurston Hall, Jed Prouty, Don Beddoe, Lester Matthews, and Edward Gargan.

Sidney Salkow and Earl Felton’s screenplay based on the detective character created by Louis Joseph Vance in a series of eight novels published between 1914 and 1934.

It was shot from August 21, 1940 to mid-September 1940.

Release date: November 23, 1940.

Running time: 65 minutes.

Warren William carried on as the Lone Wolf till Passport to Suez (1943),

The Lone Wolf sound films:

The Lone Wolf’s Daughter (1929), Last of the Lone Wolf (1930), Cheaters at Play (1932), The Lone Wolf Returns (1935), The Lone Wolf in Paris (1938), The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (1939), The Lone Wolf Strikes (1940), The Lone Wolf Meets a Lady (1940), The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date (1941), The Lone Wolf Takes a Chance (1941), Secrets of the Lone Wolf (1941), Counter-Espionage (1942), One Dangerous Night (1943), Passport to Suez (1943), The Notorious Lone Wolf (1946), The Lone Wolf in Mexico (1947), The Lone Wolf in London (1947), The Lone Wolf and His Lady (1949).

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,039

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