This is a DVR alert for the upcoming screening of the 1938 mystery thriller Arsene Lupin Returns, starring Melvyn Douglas, Virginia Bruce and Warren Williams. It’s a sequel to one of my all-time faves, Arsene Lupin. I’ve raved about that gloriously brilliant 1932 Pre-Code classic several times in this blog before (and this counts as yet another rave, if you’re keeping count), generally in the context of being gobsmacked that it isn’t better known or loved. There are so many lesser, markedly inferior films of the 1930s that garner audiences solely on the basis of technically being a “gothic horror.” The completest mindset of many horror film fans ensures that anyone who enjoys classics Dracula and Frankenstein will eventually find themselves sitting through something interminable and inexcusable like The Mask of Fu Manchu (which has the sin of being at once racist, sexist, and also boring!) Meanwhile, Arsene Lupin rides to dizzying heights of entertainment but does so without Boris Karloff or fake cobwebs, so it gets forgotten.
(Grrr). Anyway, stepping off my soapbox, I realize this week’s mission is a toughie. If I find it hard to persuade people to watch the 1932 Arsene Lupin which is virtually flawless, what’s it going to take to convince them to watch its lower-budgeted 1938 Production Code-era sequel, in which none of the original cast or crew returned?
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Let’s start with a quick refresher on just who this Arsene Lupin fellow is. In the turn of the century (that is, the turn of the 20thcentury) there was a boom in pulp mystery franchises, many of which spawned so many books they couldn’t help but lead to movies. There’s Sherlock Holmes—you don’t need me to comment on him, you know who he is. The Fantomas cycle told the ongoing adventures of a criminal mastermind and the detectives on his hunt, presented as a surrealist fever-dream where anything could happen as long as it was outrageous. Dr. Mabuse boiled the Fantomas idea down to its angriest, most paranoid essence. And then there was Arsene Lupin, the gentleman thief—a charming criminal whose exploits tended to punish the wicked while enriching himself.
In broad strokes, Arsene Lupin was practically tailor-made for low-budget American filmmaking—if you could get past his Frenchy name. Sherlock Holmes stories could be off-puttingly tangled if done wrong; Fantomas films required visual excess that cost money; Mabuse was grimdark in ways American cinema rarely was. But Arsene Lupin is just fun and playful—get some charming actors and put them in a European-looking set and call it a day.
Except… the idea of the hero who is a criminal was a problem during American cinema’s most moralist period. The first Lupin film could flaunt its amorality because in 1932 no one was enforcing the censor’s code, but in 1938 things were different.
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The 1932 film ended with Lupin faking his own death to escape jail. The new film picks up with our hero (now played by Melvyn Douglas, perfectly cast) having seemingly gone straight and rechristened “Rene Farrand.” Now, he does seem suspiciously and coincidentally to be smack in the middle of repeated attempts to steal a socialite’s fabulous emerald (Virginia Bruce plays the socialite), and those aborted thefts are attributed to a Lupin copycat. Has he returned to his old ways? Or is he being framed by the American insurance detective (Warren Williams)? Or is there some other explanation?
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The 1932 film followed similar contours, and kept the audience guessing until very late who the real criminal was. Thanks to the censors, 1938’s audiences would need to be reminded—repeatedly—that Lupin was a reformed ex-thief who didn’t do that stuff anymore. This heavy handed touch closes off a potential avenue of narrative thrills. Meanwhile, the red herring suggestion that the crimes were really being perpetrated by the detective, gone corrupt, could only be lightly flirted with—and then aggressively disowned.
Then again, it’s not as if any part of this story was designed to startle unexpecting viewers: In addition to reworking the major plot beats of the previous Arsene Lupin film, there is also the heavy shadow of The Lone Wolf Returns, a 1935 film in which… wait for it… Melvyn Douglas plays a retired jewel thief who is lured back into the game by a bewitching socialite and her fabulous emerald. I mean… sheesh… they didn’t even bother changing what kind of jewel it was. Er, and then there was Raffles, a 1930 film by the same director (George Fitzmaurice) about a retired gentleman jewel thief who… aw, what the hell?
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None of this is offered as criticism, so much as commentary. Arsene Lupin Returns has a cool-as-a-cucumber jewel thief Melvyn Douglas pitting his wits against a wily Warren Williams, with crackerjack cinematography by the great George Folsey (Forbidden Planet, Adam’s Rib, etc), music by Franz Waxman, and a zippy pace. It does not punch above its weight the way the 1932 film did, but few films do. Instead, this is solid, down-the-line entertainment from Hollywood’s Golden Age—exactly what TCM is for.
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