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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Monday, May 30, 2016

The Lone Wolf And His Lady (1949)

Starring Ron Randell, June Vincent, Alan Mowbray, William Frawley, Collette Lyons
Directed by John Hoffman
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A newspaper trying to remake itself with sensational new stories hires former jewel thief Michael Lanyard to cover the exhibition of a new diamond, but he becomes the prime suspect when it's stolen.

The final film in Columbia Pictures' long series of Lone Wolf adventures, it recasts the roles of Lanyard and loyal butler Jameson with Randell and Mowbray, and although they're not bad, they of course never got an ample opportunity to get comfortable in their roles.  Randell is capable enough, if not quite as suave as former Lone Wolves Warren William and Gerald Mohr, but while Mowbray is a fine actor, he doesn't have quite the presence or comic timing of Eric Blore, whose absence from the series after numerous appearances is definitely felt.  The mystery itself is no better or no worse than those in the other Lone Wolf films, but it's still an entertaining concoction, just not quite as much for me as the earlier films in the series.

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