The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date (1940)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Memorable, crazy movie

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A very enjoyable Lone Wolf movie, "The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date" finds Michael Lanyard (The Lone Wolf, played by Warren William) and his butler Jameson (Eric Pangborn) in Havana for a stamp convention. Well, the best laid plans -- Lanyard, a former jewel thief, soon finds himself without his collection and involved in a kidnapping, the young man who is accused sitting in prison, and his fiancé trying to pay the ransom.This is the outrageous and sophisticated Warren William at his best, with lots of comedy contributed by Pangborn. The two of them worked so well together.Though a B movie, this series was a lot of fun. Before William the role was played by Frances Lederer, Melvyn Douglas, and several other actors. After William departed the series in 1946, Gerald Mohr and Ron Randell played him. It was also a TV series starring the smooth Louis Hayward. I hope to see more starring William.

(There are Spoilers) The Lone Wolf better known as retired Jewel thief Michael Lanyard, Warren Williams, gets himself involved with beautiful Pat Lawrence, Frances Robinson, while in Havana Cuba looking and finding a rare Cuben postage stamp in fact a one of a kind.Lanyard gives Pat a ride to the airport, in his cab,not realizing that she's being targeted by a number of hoods who want what she has, but doesn't know what she has, in a package that Pat received at the Havana Post Office sent there by her fiancée Scotty,Bruce Bennett. Scotty is in jail back in Miami for a murder that he swears he didn't commit. It's that package together with this mysterious Portuguese fisherman Santos,Francis McDonald, who can prove Scotty's innocence which if convicted will land him straight into the Florida electric chair known as Ol' Sparky.It's in Miami that the hoodlums make their move grabbing Pat's package and making off with it after belting out cold Lanyard who tried to stop them. It turns out that there was a switch, on the hoodlums part, where they grabbed Lanyard's stamp collection instead of the package, which contained $100,000.00 in ransom money, that the hoods were really after.The rest of the film has Lanyard using both his wits and daring to get to the bottom of what's going on and he finds out that the $100,000.00 was to be paid to the hoods boss casino owner Joe Brady, Don Beddoe, in order to release millionaire Cyrus Colby, Henry Hurbert. Scotty a fishing boat captain got that money off the person that was his passenger and mailed it to his post office box back in Havana. Scotty's passenger was murdered by Brady's hoods, to which Portuguese fisherman Santos was an eye witness to, before he could get on board. They must of thought Sotty's boat passenger was taking off with it and keeping the cash all for himself; It was that person who Scotty was later indited for murdering.It took a while for Lanyard to get his act together but once he did it didn't take him long to get the message through to his faithful butler Jamison,Eric Blore, where Old Man Colby was being held hostage: Sandy Key a small island off the Florida coast. Getting the local Keystone-likes Kops lead by their strictly by the books Captain Moon, Jed Prouty,to follow him there, together with Pat driving a stolen or sea-jacked speed boat,Colbey was rescued by them just before Brady's boys were to put a bullet in his head. And as for Brady and his boys they were captured as Lynyard, who was also being held hostage by the Brady Bunch, was lucky that he didn't end up breaking his head in the car crash he instigating in making his escape from them.There's also in the movie, besides Capt. Moon and his over regimented law enforcers, New York police Inspector Crane, Thurston Hall, and his bumbling and butterfingered sidekick Detective Dickens, Fred Kelsey, as comedy relief. The two New York cops had no idea what they were up against, Brady and his gang of kidnappers, thinking that they were still after the Lone Wolf, Michael Lanyard, who had since gone straight and retired from his former life of crime. It was Lanyard who got them to get on the ball and get after the real bad guys in the movie by both impersonating Inspt. Crane and getting the all wet, by the time the movie was over, Det. Dickens on the right track to go after them.

THE LONE WOLF KEEPS A DATE is so heavily pulled down by too many sub-plots that it becomes exceedingly hard to follow as it goes on and on with devious twists and turns. Suffice it to say, you can watch it at your own discomfort.He's in Havana this time, coming to the aid of a damsel in distress (Frances Robinson) and keeping one step ahead of the police with his valet ERIC BLORE, again on hand to supply the comic interest.THURSTON HALL is enjoyable as a harried police inspector and there are plenty of references to the dumb cops in his employ. None of them are clever enough to deal with WARREN WILLIAMS as The Lone Wolf.It chugs along at a fast pace with, as Williams says, "no time for explanations." BRUCE BENNETT is the heroine's boyfriend, mixed up somehow in a kidnapping plot and needing help from The Wolf, who's mixed up in something about a valuable stamp collection. Bennett has only one brief scene in jail at the beginning.Whatever humor there is comes from police bungling and the antics of Eric Blore as Williams' faithful valet--and always a welcome presence in these things.Summing up: A jumbled trifle easily forgotten and not one of the best in the series.

This was Warren Williams's 4th Lone Wolf outing to Eric Blore's 3rd as the adventurous master and butler Michael Lanyard and Jamison. The entire cast were dapper in the Hollywood sunshine but Blore outshone them all, he was never more snazzily dressed than in here.The plot has it that Lanyard lets himself become embroiled in a rather nasty kidnapping affair after the baddies steal his precious stamp album mistaking it for their pay off of USD 100,000. And as usual he was helping out a damsel in distress. Amidst some fine comedic banter between the leads, slapstick, the baddies being hunted down by Lanyard and vice versa with the cops after Lanyard it can all get can pretty complicated and surreal at times, especially when the yacht makes an appearance so I recommend attention. Favourite bits: The amusing opening and chase scene in Havana; Lanyard feigning utter horror at the mess his stamp collection had got into in baddie Ed Gargan's none-too-delicate hands; whenever 53 yo zooty Blore had to run - what a sight!All in all another nice entry in the series (by my count no. 6/15), for those of us who like the genre.