IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Michael_Elliott Counter-Espionage (1942) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Nice entry in Columbia's The Lone Wolf series has Warren William back as Michael Lanyard and this time in Britain working undercover to stop some spies from getting their hands on some valuable information that could help them win the war. It doesn't take long for the police to think that Lanyard is working with the spies so he must clear his own name while stopping the evil ones. COUNTER-ESPIONAGE is a pretty good entry in the series that at least offers us a new look at the character as we're treated to some new material but sadly there's a tad bit too much of the familiar stuff that creeps itself into the film but more on that in a bit. For the most part fans of the series should enjoy the fact that Lanyard is battling someone other than jewel thieves or counterfeiters. Just about every Hollywood series was transforming their mystery characters into Nazi-fighters so it was only a matter of time before Lanyard entered the match. Overall this is a good entry because it was fun seeing the character out of his normal surroundings and we're treated to some very good direction by Edward Dmytryk. As you'd expect, William has no problem in his role as he's certainly grown quite comfortable in the part. Eric Blore returns as the butler Jamison and we've got Thurston Hall and Fred Kelsey back as the thorns in Lanyard's side. Hillary Brooke does a nice job as the lead female and Morton Lowry is fun as the lead villain, constantly chewing up the scenes. We even get brief parts from Forrest Tucker and Lloyd Bridges. The one problem I had with the film was the all-too-familiar "comic relief" with the American cops once again thinking that Lanyard is guilty of a crime. This hampered the Boston Blackie series as well but it seems after suspecting something a dozen times and be proved wrong each time that the police would believe Lanyard when he told them he didn't have anything to do with it.

bkoganbing Wartime restrictions being what they were if Great Britain had some kind of secret weapon called a beam detector, we couldn't get too specific about it. Suffice it to say the Nazis want the plans for it real bad and it's in the safe of British spy-master Stanley Logan who gets himself killed. For some plot reason I can't quite fathom Logan's aide Leslie Denison is kidnapped by the Nazi spies and its the other aide Morton Lowry who actually is betraying his country. Or is it his country, spy ring head Kurt Katch uses a German name to refer to him, I suspect he was one of those British citizens with German ancestry pressed into service for the fatherland like Peter Graves was in Stalag 17.But these Nazis haven't reckoned with the fact that Logan hired the Lone Wolf to ferret out that spy ring. With the beam detector plans as bait, Warren William goes on his mission and while it doesn't go as smoothly as a Mission Impossible mission the job gets done.Whenever these pulp or even classical heroes like Sherlock Holmes got shoehorned into a World War II flag-waver the results didn't really make for lasting cinema. The same can be said for Counter-Espionage. Two future players of note, Forrest Tucker and Lloyd Bridges are a pair of Katch's associates. The film is noteworthy for early appearances by Bridges and Tucker and little else.

Panamint Taught direction, well-paced. A fairly serious Warren William (but still charming) and Hillary Brooke (she was truly a master of the B-movie genre) are teamed up with a good director to make this the best of the Lone Wolf series for me. "Counter-Espionage" is proof once again that a big budget is not necessary to produce a good film. This is a classic example of cheap dollars spent, but nevertheless being able to display talent and high quality craftsmanship.Serious WWII Nazi spy plot dovetails nicely into the shady safe-cracker format of The Lone Wolf. Who better than The Lone Wolf to crack safes and steal war secrets (or did he?), then sneak around dark London streets amid the falling bombs.Sidekick Eric Blore is actually very good in this movie, and as a bonus you also get a solid early Lloyd Bridges performance.

MartinHafer I really enjoy watching B-detective films, such as Charlie Chan, the Saint or the Lone Wolf. However, although these breezy little pictures are a lot of fun, they do sometimes suffer from plots that are just too formulaic. In particular, Columbia Pictures' Boston Blackie and Lone Wolf films are too often so similar that it's easy to not be able to remember which you have seen and which you haven't. Both films feature a reformed master thief who is now working for good and stupid cops who again and again and again accuse them of whatever crimes occur on their beat. And all too often their plots are nearly identical.It is in light of this that I really enjoyed COUNTER-ESPIONAGE since it offers a new and very unusual locale and a change in the usual plot. Instead of the likable Michael Lanyard being in the States, here he is in London and is mixed up in a spy ring. About the only negative about this is that the same old inspector and his idiotic sidekick are somehow ALSO here--talk about a contrived plot! The film begins with a kidnapping as well as Lanyard stealing some top-secret defense plans all from the same home. The viewer no doubt will think that in spite of it all, Lanyard is STILL on the side of good--and of course this is the case. After all, who would cast the hero as a Nazi?! But despite this being a bit predictable, the film is a nice little diversion--one that will not bore or blend in with all the other many B-detective films out there.