FORGOTTEN FILM: THE LONE WOLF SPY HUNT (1939)

Michael Lanyard, jewel-thief turned detective, was created by author Louis Joseph Vance (1879-1933_and appeared in eight novels from 1914 to 1934.  (A ninth book, The Lone Wolf and the Hidden Empire by Carl W. Smith (1937), was an original juvenile novel from Whitman Publishing, which also pubished BIG Little Books.)  The Lone Wolf starred in two dozen fims from 1917 to 1949, featuring such actors in the title role as Bert Ltell, Melvyn Douglas, and Gerald Mohr; The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt was the first of nine films to star Warren William as Michael Lanyard.  Mohr was also one of two actors to play Lanyard in a 1948 radio series.  Louis Hayward played the dashing Lanyard in the Lone Wolf television series from 1954 to1955.

The source for The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt was an unpublished script for the 1929 film The Lone Wolf's Daughter; so many changes were made to that script that the original source is unrecognizable.

An old enemy of Lanyard's (Spiro, played by Ralph Morgan) is the head of a gang for fairly inept crooks trying to steal plans for an anti-aircraft gun, and manages to involve the Lone Wolf in the plot.  A young Ida Lupino plays Val Carson, a woman who hopes to marry Lanyard and spends much of the film chasing him.  Pre-teen Virginia Weidler is Lanyard's tomboy daughter Patricia and is as precocious as ever; this gets a bit confusing because Lanyard is supposed to be a bachelor -- the daughter is never mentioned again in any of the films.  Rita Hayworth notches up the sex appeal as femme fatale Karen, the girl friend of Spiro.  All in all a fast-moving, breezy mystery-comedy that was typical of the 1930s.  While the film is not great art, you won't be wasting your time watching it, and it's interesting to see Lupino and Hayworth at the start of their careers.

The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt was written by Jonathan Latimer, his first scripting credit to be listed on IMDb.  Latimer had been known for his classic mystery novels featuring Bill Crane, but this film marked the beginning of a long and successful career in films and television.  Among his writing credits are Topper Returns, The Glass Key, The Big Clock, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Copper Canyon, Plunder of the Sun, and 32 episodes of the Raymond Burr-starring Perry Mason.

Director Peter Godfrey went on to helm Hotel Berlin, Christmas in Connecticut, The Two Mrs. Carrolls, The Woman in White, and The Girl from Jones Beach among others before moving on to direct episodic television in the 1950s.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea-zWTFQXjw