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The police are in hot pursuit of master thief Arsène Lupin, who has
just robbed the house of Gaston Gourney-Martin (Tully Marshall), but when
they catch up with Lupin's car, all they find is the Duke of Charmerace
(John Barrymore) in the back, all tied up. Detective Guerchard (Lionel
Barrymore) still thinks he has captured Lupin, mainly because nobody knows
what Lupin looks like, but has not a single piece of evidence to
corroborate his suspicion. A party at Charmerace's place: Detective
Guerchard has the party infiltrated by his men, but when Charmerace spots
Guerchard in the crowd, he plays a prank on him, and has him held on
suspicion of being Arsène Lupin - after all, he might be as well as
anyone else, and he carries no police ID with him. Shortly thereafter
though, several of Charmerace's guests are robbed, by Arsène Lupin,
presumably. So IF Charmerace was Arsène Lupin, he would have outsmarted
Guerchard, right? Wrong, because Guerchard has placed a special
undercover spy, Sonia (Karen Morley), literally under the covers of
Charmerace's bed, pretty m,uch hoping that he would show interest and
confide in her in return. It seems to work, too, Charmerace really takes a
liking in Sonia - but the plan has a couple of flaws, on one hand, Sonia
takes a liking in Charmerace as well, and Charmerace has long guessed
she's one of Guerchard's spies, but goes along for the ride. Charmerace
and Sonia soon pay a visit to Gourney-Martin's villa in the country, where
he keeps all of his really valuabe stuff, and detective Guerchard is hot
on their trail, because he knows Arsène Lupin will strike there that
night. So he has the place surrounded by his men and spends the night in
the villa himself. The next day, the villa is emptied of everything that's
worth anything, and it was actually Guerchard's policemen who were
committing the crime ... or rather the crooks who Arsène Lupin has
substituted them with. The crooks are soon found, but neither the loot,
nor Arsène Lupin himself. What's worse though, Sonia gives Charmerace an
airtight alibi, much to the dismay of Guerchard, who still thinks
Charmerace is Lupin - so he promises to throw Sonia back into jail (she
was not an undercover police officer but a paroled criminal, it now turns
out). Charmerace helps Sonia to escape though, while he himself gets away
scot free - after all, there is not the smallest piece of evidence against
him. Arsène Lupin promises to steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre next,
and even gives detective Guerchard a concrete date. Now stealing the Mona
Lisa would of course be a dumb thing because you likely won't be able to
sell the painting, but Lupin does it mainly to press his men free who were
arrested in the last heist. Oh, and of course Arsène Lupin now turns out
to be Charmerace after all - not that there was much doubt beforehands,
but now the viewer's suspicions are confirmed. Now it would be hard for
Charmerace to get the Mona Lisa out of the Louvre when it's highly guarded
by Guerchard and his men who are all on the lookout for him - so he
disguises as a flower vendor, has his men create distraction after
distraction, then ignores the publicly exhibited Mona Lisa, which is a
fake planted by Guerchard, but goes for the real one in the vault, then
smuggles the painting out of the museum right under Guerchard's nose. The
flower vendor-disguise leads to Arsène Lupin's downfall however, because
Guerchard captures the real flower vendor Lupin was disguised as and has
him lead him to Lupin ... Cornered, Charmerace/Lupin makes the best of
it and sees to it that Sonia goes free and his men are set free (in
exchange for the Mona Lisa), then he tries to threaten Guerchard by
claiming he has kidnapped his daughter (which is true) to sell her into
white slavery - but Guerchard sees through Charmerace and knows he would
never be able to do such a thing. So he arrests him and Charmerace, never
a bad loser, sets Guerchard's daughter free nevertheless. On the way to
prison though, Guerchard lets Charmerace escape, but makes sure everybody
thinks he has shot him dead ... Old-fashioned but charming
crime movie that relies more on pointed dialogue than actual action
(though the few action scenes are well-executed) and lives from its
excellent principal cast (even if Lionel Barrymore as limping detective
overdoes it at times). That said, the film is hardly a classic, but more a
typical product of its time - but as such it's very enjoyable.
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