Everyone loves a lovable rogue, whether the cad in question be Arsène Lupin, A. J. Raffles, Jimmy Dale (aka The Gray Seal), Simon Templar (aka The Saint) or Michael Lanyard, an urbane jewel thief created by novelist Louis Joseph Vance in 1914 and known to his moneyed victims and the authorities alike as The Lone Wolf. Hollywood was quick to jump on the cinematic possibilities of the character, with Bert Lytell playing Lanyard as early as 1917. Lytell would return to the role in several more silent outings, with Columbia Pictures ultimately purchasing rights to the material and hanging Lanyard's cutaway coat and celluloid collar on such actors as Henry B. Walthall, Melvyn Douglas, and Francis Lederer before giving the character his own film series. With the Second World War looming in Europe, Columbia drafted The Lone Wolf into the good fight by having star Warren William (a veteran of several Perry Mason and Philo Vance films) alternating grand larceny with spy smashing in The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (1939). William would appear in a total of nine Lone Wolf films, of which The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date (1940) was his fourth. Co-written by director Sidney Salkow and studio scenarist Earl Felton (later author of the scripts for the film noir classics Armored Car Robbery [1950] and The Narrow Margin [1952]), The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date is among the better written films in the franchise, with Lanyard finding himself again caught between the law (personified by Thurston Hall and Fred Kelsey) and a gang of underworld cutthroats (led by Don Beddoe and Lester Matthews) when he comes to the aid of a beautiful lady (Frances Robinson).

by Richard Harland Smith