The Lone Wolf Takes a Chance (1941)

I'm a big fan of Warren William and Eric Blore, as well as mystery/comedy movies of that era, so my 9 star rating may be a tad prejudiced by that...still, the movie is one of the best entries in those early Lone Wolf films.The plot at times is rather silly with the Lone Wolf and Jamison trying to save the life of an inventor (Lloyd Bridges)...what did he invent?...a railroad car that couldn't be broken into...if a criminal tried, bells & whistles would sound, and poison gas would fill the car...Huh?...what if some poor hobo, looking for a ride and a place to sleep happened upon that car?...Llyod would have got his butt sued...But the movie chugs along the rails at a fast pace, plenty of laughs and an enjoyable way to spend a little over an hour of one's time...I keep this movie on my cluttered DVR...it's a comfortable movie for me...when sleep comes slowly, I just turn this on and within 30 or 40 minutes I'm fast asleep...

I get a kick out of watching these detective films of the era, they can be very entertaining but at the same time, some of them are quite brainless. The picture here fits in both categories. This Lone Wolf entry is based on a bet Michael Lanyard (William Warren) makes with Police Inspector Crane (Thurston Hall) that he can stay out of trouble for twenty four hours. By almost anyone's estimation that should be a safe one, but since that's the premise, you just know something will have to happen to cause the Lone Wolf's plans to go awry.A neat surprise for movie fans in this picture is the presence of Lloyd Bridges in his first credited screen role, even if he does spend a fair amount of time under duress while bound and gagged. He's been kidnapped by agents who want to get their hands on a new set of engraving plates that are stored in a virtually foolproof safe wired to a poisonous gas mix which is released if the safe is tampered with.If only the bad guys had been thinking as clearly as Lanyard there wouldn't have been any need to go the full seventy four minutes of the picture. Recall how Lanyard got the combination to the safe? - he just went back and watched the newsreel! Why couldn't one of the criminal masterminds figure that out for themselves? Gee, I don't know, not a lot of thought was put into this.Nor was anyone paying attention in the editing room. When Johnny Baker was shown bound and gagged in the locked safe compartment with the Lone Wolf attempting to open it, he clearly got his hands free enough to reach up to his mouth to remove the gag placed in it, but after a cut away, he's shown again with his hands tied and immobile. Fortunately Lanyard figures out the combo in time to make the save on his own, otherwise he might have simply asked Johnny for it! Well, I don't want to be too critical. The story was well played with a lot of humor thrown in, and the opening scene was fairly creative. An inattentive jeweler places a pearl necklace aside carelessly and it falls directly onto the neck of a black cat that scurries away. The whole time he's outmaneuvering the Wolf, his assistant Jamison (Eric Blore) and the police, I thought someone for sure would have called for apprehension of the cat burglar.

This Lone Wolf adventure starts out with a bet between Michael Lanyard, the Wolf (Warren William) and Inspector Crane (Thurston Hall) that Lanyard can't stay out of trouble for 24 hours. Guess who wins. A private detective (Regis Toomey) falls nine stories outside Lanyard's hotel room. The detective was working on a case involving a special train car designed by Johnny Baker (Lloyd Bridges) that is holding treasury plates and can't be broken into.Everyone, of course, thinks Lanyard is the bad guy though he's on the side of right as he and his butler Jamison (Eric Blore) enter the case, which involves murder and kidnapping. The film has a neat sequence on a train as Lanyard works to save the day.Nice entry into the series, with Warren William his usual laid back self and Eric Blore adding a lot of humor. Recommended.

Another good Lone Wolf entry, maybe only marred by too many slapstick moments at the beginning - but I never expect anything less from Fred Kelsey! The handsome young couple in here were Lloyd Bridges in his 1st credited film and June Storey who was managing without Gene Autry for a change.Warren William again plays Michael Lanyard the Lone Wolf, ex-jewel thief who has minded his own business for 10 minutes when a man is murdered by gangsters outside his 9th floor apartment window. His inadvertent help in the incident doesn't seem to faze him one bit, it's something that would definitely bother me! He and his ever effervescent butler Eric Blore are instantly mixed up and while they're chasing the baddies who've kidnapped an inventor the police are chasing them for the homicide. There's some nice scenes on a train pre North By Northwest where the Lady Vanishes becomes the Inventor Vanishes before the film swerves into an crumbly old dark house setting.With a continuously "inventive" storyline and fast pace it was one of the better and longer LW's and well worth watching for those of us who like b&w comedy mystery b pictures from the '40's.