One Dangerous Night (1942) User Reviews

Jamison!!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 26 January 2019]

This is the second to last Lone Wolf movie starring Warren William. And, like the rest of them, it's well worth your time.

When the story begins, Lanyard gives a lift to a standed lady. After they drop her off, his manservant Jamison announces that he's stolen the woman's purse! Since Lanyard is a REFORMED criminal, he then heads back to the lady's home to drop off the purse...only to find the place empty except for a dead body! You know from an earlier scene that he was a blackmailing jerk...and so his being dead is no surprise! As usual, the cops want to arrest Lanyard for the crime and, as usual, he escapes to investigate it on his own and prove his innocence.

While this film is very familiar, this is not a bad thing as the Lone Wolf series was quite popular and a B-movie, like the Charlie Chans, Boston Blackies and the rest. Blore, as usual, is wonderful in support and it's well worth your time...something I'd say of all the Lone Wolf films.

Even murder as doing the world a favor is a crime!

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 16 July 2016]

A blackmailer is murdered with three of his victims present, and with the lights out, even they are unsure of the other's innocence or guilt. Step in the lone wolf and his kleptomaniac valet to solve the crime as Warren William's been made the primary suspect even though he didn't even know the victim. Smooth talking comedy mystery has slapstick comedy to go along with the who dunnit plot, and when dumb detective Fred Kelsey gets laughs simply wearing squeaky shoes that sounds like he's passing gas, the laughs have just begun to toot.

The three victims are seemingly young and innocent socialite Marguerite Chapman, stage actress Mona Barrie and hot tempered European Tala Birell. Margaret Hayes plays another one of the murder victim's targets who eventually is blackmailed as well by his creepy looking valet (Warren Ashe).

This is a lot of fun to try and figure put, with Eric Blore's valet revisiting his kleptomaniac past. Ann Savage plays one of the lone Wolf's old conquests, while Thurston Hall as stuffy as ever (and funny) as Kelsey's boss, continuing to insult him yet irrevocably stuck with him. Fast and furious fun.

The Lone Wolf

[boblipton · 5/10 · 29 January 2019]

Gerald Mohr is leaving town. He calls together three women he's been blackmailing for one last payment. The lights go off, a gun fires and enter Warren William to return one of the ladies' handbag -- his valet, Eric Blore, has stolen it. He finds Mohr dead and calls the police. They assume he did it, and so the Lone Wolf escapes and heads off to find whodunnit.

William had been a big, snide, sexually predatory star at Warner Brothers, but that had been before the Production Code was enforced. He had spent the last ten years gradually heading down the list. Even though he was a fine actor, a star is a commercial concept. People pay to see a star because they know what they're getting, and they weren't making movies like that under the Code. So William continued to give fine performances, but less interest in him brought him to Columbia, where the schedule was easier and his diffident delivery was what served Harry Cohn's budgets.

It's a competent, early film for director Michael Gordon, who distinguished himself with adaption from the stage like CYRANO DE BERGERAC, but figured out how to compose for the wide-screen camera in movies like PILLOW TALK. However, as competent as everyone is, it's a movie that you can watch once and no more. At least, I can.

Reformation was not Jamison's long suit.

[horn-5 · 5 December 2006]

Another of the Lone Wolf films in the Columbia series featuring Warren William as the reformed thief who goes around and about helping Columbia's inept police department solve crimes while the police are trying to pin the crime on him. This is the same police department that always has Fred Kelsey as their lead detective, whose suspects on any crime on Columbia's lot is limited to either Laynard or Boston Blackie. Kelsey's detective characters never wasted much time in believing that a leopard could change its spots. But, while Michael Lanyard (aka The Lone Wolf) has indeed reformed, his man Friday/Butler/Gofer Jamison (Eric Blore, also a reformed thief who likes to keep in practice in the event a chance to un-reform pops up, and they always do,)can be depended upon to to steal something in the first reel in order to get Lanyard involved.

In this one, Lanyard and Jamison pick up Eve Andrews (Marguerite Chapman) when her card is wrecked, and drive her to an address she gives them. After leaving her, Lanyard learns that Jamison has stolen her purse. Returing to the apartment where they deposited Eve, they discover the body of wealthy playboy Harry Cooper (Gerald Mohr, who would later replace Warren William as Columbia's Lone Wolf) and, while they are examining the body, Police Inspector Crane (Thurston Hall) and Detective Dickens (Fred Kelsey), and immediately accuse Lanyard and Jamison or the murder, especially when they learn some jewels are missing. Based on the fact that missing jewels were often reported missing from locations that Lanyard had just vacated, this is not an all-together invalid assumption on the part of the police, plus it allows Lanyard to get involved in the case while running from the police.

Lanyard and Jamison escape, of course, and while tracing Eve, Laynard learns that Cooper was blackmailing her and Sonia Budenny (Tala Birell), wife of the famous physician Eric Budenny (Gregory Gay), and Jane Merrick (Mona Barrie), a famous actress. Lanyard is spotted by Sidney Shaw (Warren Ashe)a local gossip columnist (who may or may not have been famous)who tells Lanyard he won't turn him over to the police if Lanyard will allow him to "tag along" on the investigation. Hmnn

Lanyard learns that Cooper had planned to meet a woman at the airport. He hurries to the airport, where Lloyd Bridges is tending a gate, spots the girl, Patricia Blake (Margaret Hayes), follows her to her hotel and, while he is questioning her, she is mysteriously shot and wounded. Leaving her in a doctor's care, Lanyard goes to the theatre to question Jane Merrick and all the other principals in the case also show up, as does Inspector Crane and Detective Dickens who have been tipped off by Shaw as to the current whereabouts of Lanyard. Another hmnn.

Jamison rescues Lanyard and they both go back to question Patricia some more at her hotel...and the murderer shows up.

One dangerous night

[coltras35 · 7/10 · 20 February 2023]

Lanyard and his butler Jamison are driving off to a party when they come across Eve (Marguerite Chapman) whose car has gotten a few flats. They deliver her to a home and continue on - only for Jamison to gleefully confess that he stole her purse. They go back to give it to her but instead find a dead body in the house. And the police find them. The hunt is on with a group of women who were being blackmailed by the dead man and were all in the house when the lights went off. And there is also Ann Savage as part of a gang who has a history with Lanyard and a loaded gun on him now.

A lively entry finds our hero getting involved in blackmail and murder, which is par for the course for the Lone Wolf, which is played by Warren William with his raffishness. There's the usual twist and turns and some good action.

One Dangerous Night

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 11 November 2023]

I imagine this is the kind of movie you might have gone to see in a drive-in. Made amidst WWII, it tells a rather quirky tale of "Eve" (Marguerite Chapman) whose car is totalled and she is luckily rescued by the "Lone Wolf" himself (Warren William) and his loyal sidekick "Jamison" (Eric Blore). They escort her to her home only to find that when they get there, there is a body. It's a renowned playboy and it's very, very quiet! Police inspector "Crane" (Thurston Hall) is unimpressed by the array of alibis on offer and so arrests them all - but our shrewd sleuths escape, and begin to piece things together uncovering a story of blackmail and jewel thievery with the enigmatic "Patricia" (Margaret Hayes) playing an increasingly significant and puzzling role in their investigations. Can they solve this before the police apprehend them again, and again - or, ideally, before anyone else gets bumped off? Nope, there's not the slightest hint of jeopardy here and the production is really very basic. That said, there's a bit of an entertaining dynamic between Warren and Blore and the whole thing has enough of it's tongue in it's cheek to keep it entertaining if not exactly taxing on the little grey cells. It's twenty minutes too long, and at times it regurgitates itself a bit much - but as wartime whodunits go, it's by no means the worst.

Intriguing entertainment

[clanciai · 8/10 · 12 May 2022]

A young woman is stranded on the road with a puncture. Michael Lanyard (Warren William) with his valet Jamison (Eric Blore) happen to pass by and pick her up, driving her to her destination. Eric Blore finds himself with her handbag, so they return to the house. There the owner has just been murdered after a rendez-vous with three fine ladies, all loaded with jewellery. When Warren William returns with Eric Blore only the corpse is left and the mystery of it. It proves that anyone of the three ladies could have killed him, since they all had motives enough, having been blackmailed by him, but the intrigue is more complicated. The odyssey into this labyrinth of intrigue and constantly more complications to the case turn into a maze of new clues and leads, out of which both Warren William and his valet and the audience will find it hard to find a way out. Ultimately the mystery is solved, and of course it's the one you least would have suspected to have done anything of the sort, but it's the comedy of this criminal farce that counts. Eric Blore gets the prize with his adorable diction while one of the police officers also cuts quite a hilarious figure. The dialog is brilliant, it is great entertainment, very much in the style of Dick Powell and Myrna Loy, while you will hardly ever watch it again: Once is enough.