Arsène Lupin, the dashing French jewel thief, was created by Maurice Leblanc soon after E.W. Hornung created the similar English thief Raffles. Warner Archive recently issued two Raffles movies as a double-feature on demand, and they’ve also obliged us with this terrific two-fer of MGM films about Lupin. While the Raffles movies are sophisticated entertainments, the Lupin films cross into real brilliance, and these prints are as sparkling as the dialogue.
In both films, the debonair Lupin plays cat and mouse with a clever and relentless detective. In Arsène Lupin, brothers John and Lionel Barrymore play these mighty opponents, with John constantly displaying his profile as the handsome Lupin while his limping brother fumes and frets as the crafty policeman.
Written by Lenore Coffee, Bayard Veiller, and Carey Wilson, the plot tosses off surprising reversals and curves. Not least among curves are those of Sonia (Karen Morley), first seen covering her nudity in Lupin’s bed in a very racy scene of the type Hollywood got away with before the Production Code’s crackdown on untoward shenanigans. Lupin’s response on finding a naked stranger in his bed isn’t strictly gentlemanly, or perhaps it is. The exciting ending is another thing the Code wouldn’t allow. Directed by Jack Conway and shot by Oliver Marsh with several interesting uses of darkness on handsomely designed sets, this is a fluid, delightful film.
Arsène Lupin Returns is a sequel that picks up several years later, during which time Lupin has metamorphosed into Melvyn Douglas and walked the straight and narrow as a gentleman farmer. It takes him a reel to show up, however, as the plot first concentrates on a celebrated and self-satisfied American G-man (Warren William, who could just as easily be playing Lupin), who resigns from the Bureau and takes a private job in insurance. His first case is a missing emerald that’s almost stolen in New York. He accompanies the owners to France, where one lovely family member (Virginia Bruce) is being courted by the next-door farmer, who is secretly — yep, you guessed it.
The romantic and professional rivarly between these men is handled with wit and aplomb, as each suspects the other of being onto him. The real complications arise when the reformed Lupin claims to know nothing of the attempts on the emerald for which he’s being blamed, and he undertakes to unmask the culprit before he’s fingered himself. A rich supporting cast includes Nat Pendleton and E.E. Clive as former criminal associates, George Zucco as the French detective, and Monty Woolley dithering with his trademark beard.
This plot is even more twisty and downright baffling than the previous film, and must count as one of classic Hollywood’s cleverest mysteries, even if the revelation of guilt isn’t really astounding. This wonderful script is the work of three guys with three names: James Kevin McGuinness, Howard Emmett Rogers, and mystery novelist George Harmon Coxe. (The idea of an infamous burglar who must clear his “good name” from a copycat resurfaced in Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, though that’s based on a David Dodge novel.) Director George Fitzmaurice would later direct the 1939 remake of Raffles, which is no surprise. As good as the Raffles efforts are, the French scoundrel goes them one better.