The Lone Wolf in Paris

Francis Lederer is the Lone Wolf, retired jewel thief and a bit bored by it. He's staying at a hotel in paris, where various foreign nobles report that their suites have been robbed -- raising the manager's suspicions of Lederer -- of nothing. Lederer discovers that Princess Frances Drake of Made-Uppia is present, trying to recover the crown jewels necessary for her brother's coronation; their mother, Ruth Robinson, borrowed money on them, but now the lenders, led by Grand Duke Walter Kingsford, refuses to let her redeem them; he plans to run the country when the jewels in the crown turn out to be paste. So Lederer offers to help the Princess out.

Lederer plays the role with aplomb, considerably more than all the dukes and royals combined. His tricks are simple and invariably succeed, until the bad guys point guns at him. It's a nice little adventure movie that gets it over in 66 minutes, and then you can get on with something else.

Melvin Douglas starred in Columbia's 1935 remake of the 1926 silent "The Lone Wolf Returns," while Francis Lederer takes on the role in this isolated followup from 1938. The series proper begins with the next entry, "The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt" (1939), which starred Warren William in the first of his nine films that continued through 1943 (the character featured in six silent features and three early talkies before the Douglas remake). Obviously the inspiration for the Saint and the Falcon, The Lone Wolf was a reformed jewel thief with an eye for the ladies, and in "Paris," they don't get much prettier than Frances Drake ("Mad Love", "The Invisible Ray"), cast as a princess in distress. The dependable Walter Kingsford and a young Albert Dekker (billed as Albert Van Dekker) are among the villains but they don't come off as being a very dangerous bunch hence the middling grade, though Lederer is perfectly acceptable if one can excuse the accent (which made him an intriguing choice for the title role in "The Return of Dracula" in 1958.) In this film and the previous entry with Douglas, The Lone Wolf's valet is named Jenkins but beginning with Warren William's debut film the character was dubbed Jamison and thereafter played in all but one film by Eric Blore. The Wolf's given name is Michael Lanyard but Lederer's first name is spelled Michel. This is one of the five entries from 1935 to 1949 that has yet to be shown on Turner Classic Movies so that may explain why there have been no prior comments. Hardly an essential entry but worth a look for the curious.

Princess in Trouble Calls Reformed Jewel Thief Michael Lanyard to Help Her Fight Malicious Opposition. But. I'm sorry to be able to tell my father that, your film is too short, just for a long film.

There's nothing really wrong with this movie. There just isn't much of interest. It's a stereotypical story of three nobles who are holding the queen of an obscure small country hostage with the hope of replacing her and her son and taking over the throne. (To do what? We're led to believe that there's nothing much to the country.) The queen's daughter meets a reformed jewel thief, the Lone Wolf of the title, and enlists his aid in getting back some royal jewels that the three evil nobles intend to use to force the queen to abdicate. (She sold the jewels to them to help the starving peasants in her bankrupt country, but needs them now that her son is about to be crowned, and they, baddies that they are, won't sell them back. Nasty nasty.) The Lone Wolf agrees to come out of retirement, so to speak, because he's attracted to the princess.

Things work out as you would expect.

As I said, there's nothing wrong with this. It's just all pretty much movies by the numbers, and not interesting.

I quite enjoyed Francis Lederer's interpretation of our reformed "Lanyard" here. He arrives in Paris only to find his luxury hotel a bit reticent to accommodate him! It doesn't help that he has more wanted posters on him than Billy the Kid! Anyway, some endorsements from the great and the good of European policing get him in, and straight into a blackmailing mess that could effect the future king of 'Arvonne". It seems the Queen (Ruth Robinson) effectively pawned the crown jewels to her nobility who are now refusing to return them so the mischievous "Grand Duke Gregor" (Walter Kingsford) can usurp the throne. Luckily, our hero and the feisty princess "Thania" (Frances Drake) concoct a cunning plan to get the stones back into the right hands before the imminent coronation of her young brother. There are some spurious accents throughout this hour-long drama, but it's still quite a characterful little enterprise with Lederer and Kingsford developing quite a decent, knife-throwing, cat and mouse scenario. The production is on the basic side, and it really could have been doing with a bit more light, but it's decently paced with just enough intrigue and posh frocks to keep it watchable.