Henry B. Walthall stars as Michael Lanyard, aka the Lone Wolf, a notorious master thief who went legit when War was declared in Europe. After Lanyard's sister and nephew are killed by German agent Ekstrom (Lon Chaney), Walthall joins the war effort as a spy, but with the primary motive of tracking down and killing Ekstrom. His road to vengeance leads him back across the sea to America and to a nest of the Kaiser's spies in New York.
There are enough big action moments and suspenseful situations in this to make me think it could have been a condensed serial, but it's not. There are shoot-outs, fisticuffs, swapped identities, a sought-after MacGuffin, and, as the title implies, no one is who they claim to be. Walthall is really terrific here, and judged along with his other roles from the period that I've seen, makes a strong case for best actor of the 1910's. Chaney gets to be really dastardly, and also gets a few disguises of his own.
There are enough big action moments and suspenseful situations in this to make me think it could have been a condensed serial, but it's not. There are shoot-outs, fisticuffs, swapped identities, a sought-after MacGuffin, and, as the title implies, no one is who they claim to be. Walthall is really terrific here, and judged along with his other roles from the period that I've seen, makes a strong case for best actor of the 1910's. Chaney gets to be really dastardly, and also gets a few disguises of his own.