The Lone Wolf Meets a Lady ** (1940, Warren William, Eric Blore, Jean Muir, Victor Jory) – Classic Movie Review 12,867

Columbia Pictures’ enjoyable 1940 thriller film The Lone Wolf Meets a Lady stars Warren William as reformed jewel thief Michael Lanyard, Eric Blore as his bumbling butler, and Jean Muir as the femme fatale.

Director Sidney Salkow’s enjoyable 1940 Columbia Pictures American thriller film The Lone Wolf Meets a Lady stars Warren William as reformed jewel thief Michael Lanyard, Eric Blore as his bumbling butler, and Jean Muir as the femme fatale.

Smoothie Warren William makes an ideal Lone Wolf Michael Lanyard, who here falls for seductive femme fatale Joan Bradley (Jean Muir), whose elegant necklace seems to implicate her in a jewel robbery and even darker crimes. William has to double-cross everyone from the gangsters to the cops to get Muir off charges of theft and murder.

The Lone Wolf Meets a Lady is slick, fast moving and entertaining, with Eric Blore on good comic cue as the dithering valet Jamison who can’t keep himself out of trouble.

The film introduces a sidekick for Lanyard, his bumbling butler Jamison, played by the popular comic actor Eric Blore, who played him in seven more films.

It is the fifth film in the Columbia Pictures series and the third starring William as Michael Lanyard, following The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (1939) and The Lone Wolf Strikes (1940).

Also in the cast are Victor Jory, Roger Pryor, Warren Hull, Thurston Hall, Fred A Kelsey, Bruce Bennett, Robert Emmett Keane, and Luis Alberni.

Author Louis Joseph Vance started his Lone Wolf character in 1914 for a series of eight books (1914–1934), later adapted to 24 Lone Wolf films (1917–1949), with Warren Williams starring in nine of them (1939–1943).

The cast are Warren William as Michael Lanyard, Jean Muir as Joan Bradley, Eric Blore as Jamison, Victor Jory as Clay Beaudine, Roger Pryor as Peter Rennick, Warren Hull as Bob Penyon, Thurston Hall as Inspector M.J. Crane, Fred Kelsey (as Fred A Kelsey) as Detective Dickens, Robert Emmett Keane as Peter Van Wyck, Georgia Caine as Mrs Penyon, William Forrest as Arthur Trent, Marla Shelton as Rose Waverly, and Bruce Bennett as Motorcycle Policeman McManus.

The Lone Wolf films:

The Lone Wolf (silent, 1917, Bert Lytell)

The False Faces (silent, 1919, Henry B. Walthall)

The Lone Wolf’s Daughter (silent, 1919, Bertram Grassby)

The Lone Wolf (silent, 1924, Jack Holt)

The Lone Wolf Returns (silent, 1926, Bert Lytell)

Alias the Lone Wolf (silent, 1927, Bert Lytell)

The Lone Wolf’s Daughter (1929, Bert Lytell)

Last of the Lone Wolf (1930, Bert Lytell)

Cheaters at Play (1932, Thomas Meighan)

The Lone Wolf Returns (1935, Melvyn Douglas)

The Lone Wolf in Paris (1938, Francis Lederer)

The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (1939, Warren William)

The Lone Wolf Strikes (1940, Warren William)

The Lone Wolf Meets a Lady (1940, Warren William)

The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date (1941, Warren William)

The Lone Wolf Takes a Chance (1941, Warren William)

Secrets of the Lone Wolf (1941, Warren William)

Counter-Espionage (1942, Warren William)

One Dangerous Night (1943, Warren William)

Passport to Suez (1943, Warren William)

The Notorious Lone Wolf (1946, Gerald Mohr)

The Lone Wolf in Mexico (1947, Gerald Mohr)

The Lone Wolf in London (1947, Gerald Mohr)

The Lone Wolf and His Lady (1949, Ron Randell).

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,867

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