In pursuit of Stacie (Ella Raines), a filthy rich Greek heiress whose
emerald he did deliberately not steal on the Orient Express, master
thief Arsène Lupin (Charles Korvin) comes to London ... to witness
several attempts are made on Stacie's life. It doesn't take Arsène long
to figure out her uncle (Miles Mander) and aunt (Gale Sondergaard) are
behind all of this because her death would leave them her fortune - but
what to do? He can't tell her or the police, because he doesn't have any
evidence, so he decides to steal her emerald, the key to her fortune,
himself, to put her out of harm's way. He is caught though, but because
Stacie sees his honest intentions, she gets him off the hook. In the
meantime, a French inspector, Ganimard (J.Carrol Naish) has come to London
to track down Arsène, and he succeeds, too - but has a tough time getting
hold of him, because Arsène has forged papers and uses every trick in the
book to evade Ganimard, even has him arrested at one point. Everything
comes to a head when Stacie's uncle and aunt want to shoot her, but
Arsène, with the police in tow, intervenes just in time. At the
airport, Arsène and Stacie, by now bona fide lovers, say goodbye, but
promise to later meet up in Paris. During their farewell, Stacie does
something that will eventually lead to Arsène's downfall and arrest,
because she slips her emerald into his coat pocket as a token of her trust
... and when Ganimard later stops and searches Arsène with the London
police in tow, they find it and come to all the wrong conclusions ... George
Dolenz plays Arsène's trusted sidekick. Very routine B-picture
that turns the Arsène Lupin concept on its head and turns
the flamboyant masterthief with a heart of gold into a dull dogooder who
might do a bit of stealing on the side - but mostly to help orphanages or
save lives. And that Charles Korvin lacks the charisma to really turn the
film around doesn't help much either. Pretty much a disappointment,
actually.
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