Secrets of the Lone Wolf (1941)

By CinemaSerf

"Haven't you ever heard of ricochet?" "Yeah, it's a Chinese taxi"... Poor old "Dickens" (Fred Kelsey) is just as hopeless as usual in this outing for "Lanyard" (Warren William) and his loyal and engaging factotum "Jamison" (Eric Blore). To his credit, this time "Insp. Crane" (Thurston Hall) decides to get in front of a crime by engaging the services of the "Lone Wolf" to anticipate the theft of the famous "Napoleon" collection of priceless gems and so help prevent any such pinching. Of course, nothing goes to plan and when the stones are stolen in a version of the fashion outlined by "Lanyard", the police conclude that it has to be him! Now he has to prove his innocence and track down the true culprit before the inspector blows a gasket or two and he ends up in Sing Sing. It's all a bit formulaic, this one - but it does benefit from the only sparing interventions of Ruth Ford's "Helen" and from a decent pace set aboard a yacht usually smothered in dense fog (or just badly lit?). The ending is busy and entertaining and I actually found this to be one of the better adventures for our duo.