Tonight's Movie: Enter Arsene Lupin (1944) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

This weekend was the August 6th birthday of one of my favorite actresses, Ella Raines, who was born in Washington State in 1920.

In Raines' honor I watched ENTER ARSENE LUPIN (1944), which was just released on Blu-ray in the Kino Lorber Dark Side of Cinema VIII collection.

To my knowledge, ENTER ARSENE LUPIN, a Universal Pictures film, has not had a prior release on DVD or even VHS. It certainly proved to be my kinda movie, 72 minutes of pure enjoyment.

Charming master thief Arsene Lupin (Charles Korvin), using a false name, "meets cute" with Stacie Kanares (Raines) when her priceless emerald disappears while they're traveling on the Paris-bound Orient Express.

Lupin "finds" and returns the emerald in order to woo the enchanting Stacie, then follows her to London along with his cook-valet-henchman Dubose (George Dolenz, father of Micky of The Monkees). He's also followed by the hapless French Inspector Ganimard (J. Carrol Naish).

Shortly after arriving in England Lupin realizes that Stacie's cash-strapped aunt (Gale Sondergaard) and uncle (Miles Mander) are trying to kill her in order to inherit her emerald. He needs to steal it again, but this time in order to take away the chance that Stacie will be murdered.

This is one of those movies which is just plain fun, an unexpected pleasure with a winning pair of lead actors and a couple of entertaining villains. Naish might be a little too buffoonish, but his performance does underscore that the thefts are all in good fun and the movie's not meant to be taken seriously. My only complaint is the very ambiguous ending, which made me wonder if perhaps a sequel had been contemplated. I would have liked that!

Raines may not show a great deal of range in this, but I simply like her, particularly when she's flirting with Korvin. I liked the confident way she "showed him the door" early in the film but also the way their relationship developed as the movie went on. It's quite sweet. And, as always, Raines looks gorgeous; her gowns are by Vera West.

I'd add that 1944 was an amazing movie year for Raines, who also appeared that year in PHANTOM LADY (1944), HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO (1944), TALL IN THE SADDLE (1944), and THE SUSPECT (1944) -- all top-drawer entertainment.

This was the film debut of Charles Korvin, who also stars in another film in the set, TEMPTATION (1946). I had previously seen him in supporting roles in a couple of films, including BERLIN EXPRESS (1948), and he also appeared in Disney's TV version of ZORRO (1958), but I am mostly unfamiliar with him. Korvin, who was born in Austria-Hungary, acted all the way up to the 1978 TV miniseries HOLOCAUST, as well as in a 1993 European TV-movie, and he passed away in New York City in 1998.

A fun bit of trivia I came across is that Korvin was a good friend of Julia Child's, who is said to have named him her favorite "amateur chef." 

ENTER ARSENE LUPIN was produced and directed by Ford Beebe. It was filmed in black and white by Hal Mohr. (I should note here there's one location scene with Raines fishing which suddenly switches to a back projection with odd sound which echoes a bit; I'm guessing they must have needed to reshoot part of the scene at the studio?) The screenplay was by Bertram Millhauser, based on character created by Maurice Le Blanc.

The Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray from a new 2K master looks lovely and has a strong soundtrack, other than the previously mentioned scene, which is probably inherent to the film. Extras consist of the trailer; two additional trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber; and a commentary track by Anthony Slide.

Kino Lorber has also just released another never-on-DVD Ella Raines film, TIME OUT OF MIND (1947), which I'll be reviewing here in the near future along with more films from the Dark Side of Cinema collections!

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray collection.

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