In False Faces, produced in 1918 but released the next year, the gentleman thief known as the "Lone Wolf" in the novels of Louis Joseph Vance switches genres from mystery to espionage. $3,500 was paid to Vance for the rights to the story, as producer Thomas Ince began a series from Vance novels, as I reveal in my Ince biography. False Faces has major scenes involving a submarine and the sinking of a passenger liner, recent events which had evoked so much popular concern and had been depicted in a very different manner in Civilization.
After a title alongside the Kaiser's pointed helmet over a skull, the Lone Wolf is shown escaping German lines, across "no-man's land," into the safety of Allied territory. He requests to be taken to the commander, who turns out to be a former police adversary—but all, outlaw and lawman alike, are now united against the Boche. The Lone Wolf, whose real name is Michael Lanyard, had retired to live with his widowed sister and her child in Belgium, the very country to be the scene of many of the most widely-reported German atrocities. Ekstrom, like the Lone Wolf also a former thief, but one who is Prussian, hates Lanyard, and has his family murdered. Lanyard seeks vengeance on Ekstrom even as both men continue in their country's service, leading to their ultimate confrontation.
During an interlude at sea, a disguised Ekstrom steals a cylinder entrusted to Lanyard by Cecilia Brooke. Their ship is torpedoed by a U-boat, and apparently only Lanyard survives, taken aboard by impersonating an officer of the Wilhelmstrasse. The drunken submarine commander was responsible for sinking the Lusitania. In a striking nightmare sequence, he is haunted by the faces of those his vessel has drowned, surrounding and imploring him for air. A Bavarian, the captain hates the equally besotted first mate, a Prussian, who shoots his captain when the U-boat is docked in a secret base off Martha's Vineyard.
Teutonic menace reaches into the American heartland as the action switches to New York City. Cecilia survived, but believed Lanyard, whom she knew only as Andre Duchemin, drowned. Neither knew the other was a spy. Ekstrom, now operating out of the German embassy, has the secretary of the British consulate in his employ. Ekstrom abducts Cecilia, and Lanyard comes to her rescue, escaping so that Ekstrom's own men shoot him moments before they are seized by the American Secret Service. As the clouds of betrayal lift, Lanyard realizes he loves Cecilia and learns that a man he thought was her sweetheart was in fact her brother, also a spy. The duplicity caused by espionage, and the betrayal and cruelty of the Germans, finally comes to an end.
False Faces is an exciting, involved film, patent propaganda but engaging for casting the slight Henry B. Walthall as the one-time thief. He triumphs in this war story by his quick wit, rather than brawn, and although he may gaze with nostalgic longing at jewels found when he opens a safe for a secret document, he overcomes the temptation; the war has made the Lone Wolf into a hero of the Allied cause. Today, False Faces is perhaps best known as an early Lon Chaney title, since he played Ekstrom, and is shown adopting a number of disguises, but the thematic and generic range of the movie deserve recognition as well. Later the same year, Ince associate J. Parker Read produced another film billed as a sequel, The Lone Wolf's Daughter (1919).
After a title alongside the Kaiser's pointed helmet over a skull, the Lone Wolf is shown escaping German lines, across "no-man's land," into the safety of Allied territory. He requests to be taken to the commander, who turns out to be a former police adversary—but all, outlaw and lawman alike, are now united against the Boche. The Lone Wolf, whose real name is Michael Lanyard, had retired to live with his widowed sister and her child in Belgium, the very country to be the scene of many of the most widely-reported German atrocities. Ekstrom, like the Lone Wolf also a former thief, but one who is Prussian, hates Lanyard, and has his family murdered. Lanyard seeks vengeance on Ekstrom even as both men continue in their country's service, leading to their ultimate confrontation.
During an interlude at sea, a disguised Ekstrom steals a cylinder entrusted to Lanyard by Cecilia Brooke. Their ship is torpedoed by a U-boat, and apparently only Lanyard survives, taken aboard by impersonating an officer of the Wilhelmstrasse. The drunken submarine commander was responsible for sinking the Lusitania. In a striking nightmare sequence, he is haunted by the faces of those his vessel has drowned, surrounding and imploring him for air. A Bavarian, the captain hates the equally besotted first mate, a Prussian, who shoots his captain when the U-boat is docked in a secret base off Martha's Vineyard.
Teutonic menace reaches into the American heartland as the action switches to New York City. Cecilia survived, but believed Lanyard, whom she knew only as Andre Duchemin, drowned. Neither knew the other was a spy. Ekstrom, now operating out of the German embassy, has the secretary of the British consulate in his employ. Ekstrom abducts Cecilia, and Lanyard comes to her rescue, escaping so that Ekstrom's own men shoot him moments before they are seized by the American Secret Service. As the clouds of betrayal lift, Lanyard realizes he loves Cecilia and learns that a man he thought was her sweetheart was in fact her brother, also a spy. The duplicity caused by espionage, and the betrayal and cruelty of the Germans, finally comes to an end.
False Faces is an exciting, involved film, patent propaganda but engaging for casting the slight Henry B. Walthall as the one-time thief. He triumphs in this war story by his quick wit, rather than brawn, and although he may gaze with nostalgic longing at jewels found when he opens a safe for a secret document, he overcomes the temptation; the war has made the Lone Wolf into a hero of the Allied cause. Today, False Faces is perhaps best known as an early Lon Chaney title, since he played Ekstrom, and is shown adopting a number of disguises, but the thematic and generic range of the movie deserve recognition as well. Later the same year, Ince associate J. Parker Read produced another film billed as a sequel, The Lone Wolf's Daughter (1919).