M-G-M. Director George Fitzmaurice; Producer John W. Considine Jr; Writer James Kevin McGuinness, Howard Emmett Rogers, George Harmon Coxe; Camera George Folsey Editor Ben Lewis; Music Franz Waxman Art Cedric Gibbons, Stan Rogers, Edwin B. Willis
Melvyn Douglas
Virginia Bruce
Warren William
John Halliday
Nat Pendleton
Monty Woolley
Supposedly killed by the police long ago, the gendarme mystifier, Lupin, a character created (and used before in films) by Maurice Leblanc is found by the writers of this original to have merely retired and gone legit. He is played by Melvyn Douglas, whose two associates, Nat Pendleton and E.E. Clive, a couple of muggs, help him in his pseudo-crime re-entry.
Whole thing is deftly handled by director and cutter, the pace fast enough to always hold the viewer, and there's enough comedy to liven nearly every situation.
The beginning of the story concerns the FBI's casting out of Warren William, a publicity hog who becomes of no use to the government because he's known everywhere. He goes into private practice and gets an insurance company protective job watching a $250,000 jewel on transport from America to France. Only after the boat docks on the other side, does Lupin begin figuring. Last half becomes very much cops-and-robber.
(B&W) Extract of a review from 1938. Running time: 81 MIN.
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