It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Columbia Pictures was in the second tier (the Little Three) of the major Hollywood movie studios of the golden age, and it put out just a few B level war films during World War II. "Counter-Espionage" of 1942 is one of those. It has a more prominent cast than many Columbia films of the time and genre Warren William stars in this film that is as much a crime-mystery film as it is a war film. Espionage is the matter that links the two subplots. William plays Michael Lanyard, a character who appears in a number of mystery films of the period under the alias, "The Wolf." William was a very good actor who played some of the best villain roles in the early years of sound pictures. He was versatile and played a number of romantic leads and then played a dashing, debonair and sophisticated crime-stopper in various roles that were serialized over time. Philo Vance was one, Perry Mason was another, and Michael Lanyard is his most well-known. William may have been better known today, but he died of blood cancer (multiple myeloma) in 1948 at age 53.An additional trademark of the crime-stopper films was comedy. Sometimes it came through a sidekick, often through dumb or inept police detectives, and sometimes with both. In this film, we have both. And a big plus is the presence of Eric Blore as his servant-sidekick, Jamison. Blore was English and played supporting heavier roles as butlers, valets, etc. that were much meatier and with great humor. I always have some good laughs from Blore's roles in movies.The rest of the cast are OK, including a number of well-known actors. Forrest Tucker plays a German thug, Anton Schugg. The plot is a simple and familiar type of story about Nazi spies trying to get hold of plans for a secret weapon. What elevates the movie are the film clips and/or segments of the London bombing. Columbia must have gotten its hands on some actual newsreel film from London to intersperse with its story. It gives a very real sense to picture, where some of the rest of it seems a little hokey.

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.

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.

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.