The Lone Wolf
(Michael Lanyard)
Created by Louis Joseph Vance (1879-1933)

Louis Joseph Vance's MICHAEL LANYARD, better known as THE LONE WOLF, didn't start out as a private eye, but as a criminal.

However, like Jack Boyle's Boston Blackie, thanks to his numerous re-creations in film, radio and television, The Lone Wolf is now best remembered these days, if at all, chiefly as a sort of gentleman thief turned private eye.

All of Vance's books feature Lanyard as a charming sort of rogue, a European jewel thief with a soft spot for damsels in distress, trained in the criminal arts by the mysterious Irishman, Bourke. It's said The Lone Wolf was the inspiration for Leslie Chartis' The Saint. He certainly proved to be popular, right from the start.

His first appearance in film was in 1917, only three years after the first novel appeared. He remained a criminal right into the talkies, but by 1939's The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt, he was a reformed gentleman thief and amateur sleuth on the side of the good guys. In The Lone Wolf Meets a Lady (1940), he acquired a valet, Jamison, whose chief job, it seemed, was to provide comic relief, and to become hopelessly entangled in the plots.

In 1948, after appearing in close to two dozen films, The Lone Wolf moved to radio, and began a new career, with the cultured European jewel thief now an American private eye, even if the cops still didn't trust him. The radio series also proved successful enough to eventually spawn a television series, in 1954. The TV show had a rather schizophrenic hero, with actor Louis Hayward (left) playing the character as a retired French gentleman by day, and the shadowy, wall-crawling Lone Wolf by night.

The Lone Wolf eventually did go gently into that good night, until he was unexpectedly resurrected in comic book form in 2002 by Moonstone, along with -- yes -- Boston Blackie. Seems you can't keep a good character down... but they're sure trying. In this latest incarnation, The Lone Wolf is inexplicably a young babe who works alone for the most part.

COLLECTORS' CORNER

• Nope, I don't know where you can find a pendant like The Lone Wolf wore on the old TV show. Sorry, boys. Maybe eBay? Gary Stark, a visitor to this site, had one given to him as a kid, so we know they're out there

NOVELS

.....

• The Lone Wolf: A Melodrama (1914)...Read this book for free
• The False Faces (1918) ...Read this book for free
• Alias The Lone Wolf (1921)...Read this book for free
• Red Masquerade (1921)...Read this book for free
• The Lone Wolf Returns (1923)
• The Lone Wolf's Son (1931)
• Encore The Lone Wolf (1933)
• The Lone Wolf's Last Prowl (1934)

FILMS

• THE LONE WOLF
  (1917)
  Silent
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Starring Bert Lytell as THE LONE WOLF
  .
• THE LONE WOLF
  (1924)
  Silent
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by S.E.V. Taylor
  Starring Jack Holt as THE LONE WOLF
  Also starring Alphonse Ethie, Dorothy Dalton
  
  
• THE LONE WOLF RETURNS
  (1926, Columbia)
  Silent/61 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Ralph Ince
  Starring Bert Lytell as THE LONE WOLF
  Also starring Billie Dove
  The first of many Lone Wolf flicks from Columbia, this one starred Bert Lytell who had already played the character several times in prior films, including the first Lone Wolf film way back in 1917.
  
  
• ALIAS THE LONE WOLF
  (1927, Columbia)
  Silent/7 reels
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Edward H. Griffith
  Starring Bert Lytell as THE LONE WOLF
  Also starring Lois Wilson
  
  
• FALSE FACES
  (1930, Columbia)
  Silent
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Starring Henry B. Walthall as THE LONE WOLF
  .
• THE LAST OF THE LONE WOLF
  (1930, Columbia)
  70 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Richard Boleslawski
  Starring Bert Lytell as THE LONE WOLF
  Supposedly the first in the series to have sound.
  .
• THE LONE WOLF RETURNS
  (AKA "The Return of the Lone Wolf")
  (1935, Columbia)
  68 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Roy William Neill
  Starring Melvyn Douglas as THE LONE WOLF
  Also starring Gail Patrick, Tala Birell, Arthur Hohl, Thurston Hall
  A remake of the 1926 film.
  .
• THE LONE WOLF IN PARIS
  (1938, Columbia)
  66 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Albert S. Rogell
  Starring Francis Lederer as THE LONE WOLF
  Also starring Frances Drake, Walter Kingsford, Leona Maricle, Olaf Hytten, Albert Van Dekker
  .
• THE LONE WOLF SPY HUNT
  (1939, Columbia)
  67 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Screenplay by Jonathan Latimer
  Directed by Peter Godrey
  Starring Warren William as THE LONE WOLF
  Also starring Ida Lupino, Rita Hayworth, Virginia Weidler, Ralph Morgan, Don Beddoe, Tom Dugan
  .
• THE LONE WOLF STRIKES
  (1940, Columbia)
  57 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Sydney Salkow
  Starring Warren William as THE LONE WOLF
  with Eric Blore as Jamison
  Also starring Joan Perry, Alan Baxter, Astrid Allwyn, Montagu Love, Robert Wilcox, Don Beddoe
  
  
• THE LONE WOLF MEETS A LADY
  (1940, Columbia)
  71 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Sydney Salkow
  Starring Warren William as THE LONE WOLF
  with Eric Blore as Jamison
  Also starring Jean Muir, Warren Hull, Thurston Hall, Victor Jory, Roger Pryor
  
  
• SECRETS OF THE LONE WOLF
  (1941, Columbia)
  62 minutes
  Directed by Edward Dmytryk
  Starring Warren William as THE LONE WOLF
  with Eric Blore as Jamison
  
  
• THE LONE WOLF KEEPS A DATE
  (1941, Columbia)
  65 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Sydney Salkow
  Starring Warren William as THE LONE WOLF
  with Eric Blore as Jamison
  Also starring Frances Robinson, Bruce Bennett, Thurston Hall, Jed Prouty
  .
• THE LONE WOLF TAKES A CHANCE
  (1941, Columbia)
  76 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Sydney Salkow
  Starring Warren William as THE LONE WOLF
  with Eric Blore as Jamison
  Also starring Lloyd Bridges, June Storey, Henry Wilcoxon, Thurston Hall, Don Beddoe, Evalyn Knapp
  .
• COUNTER-ESPIONAGE
  (1942, Columbia)
  71 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Edward Dmytryk
  Starring Warren William as THE LONE WOLF
  In the mid-1940s Columbia dropped the "Lone Wolf" from several of the films in hopes of attracting new audiences.
  
  
• ONE DANGEROUS NIGHT
  (1943, Columbia)
  77 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Michael Gordon
  
  
• PASSPORT TO SUEZ
  (1943, Columbia)
  76 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Andre De Toth
  Starring Warren William as THE LONE WOLF
  with Eric Blore as Jamison
  Also starring Ann Savage, Robert Stanford, Sheldon Leonard, Lloyd Bridges, Gavin Muir
  .
• THE NOTORIOUS LONE WOLF
  (1946)
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  and a story by William Bowers
  Screenplay by Martin Berkeley, Edward Dein, Garrett Graham
  Directed by D. Ross Lederman  
  Produced by Ted Richmond
  Gerald Mohr as THE LONE WOLF
  Also starring Janis Carter, Eric Blore, John Abbott, William B. Davidson, Don Beddoe, Adele Roberts, Robert E. Scott, Peter Whitney, Olaf Hytten, Ian Wolfe, Edith Evanson, Maurice Cass.
  .
• THE LONE WOLF IN MEXICO
  (1947)
  69 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Ross Lederman
  Starring Gerald Mohr as THE LONE WOLF
  with Eric Blore as Jamison
  Also starring Sheila Ryan, Jacqueline de Wit, Nestor Paiva, John Gallaudet
  .
• THE LONE WOLF IN LONDON
  (1947)
  68 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by Leslie Goodwins
  Starring Gerald Mohr as THE LONE WOLF
  with Eric Blore as Jamison
  Also starring Nancy Saunders, Evelyn Ankers
  .
• THE LONE WOLF AND HIS LADY
  (1949)
  71 minutes
  Based on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Directed by John Hoffman
  Starring Ron Randell as THE LONE WOLF
  Also starring June Vincent, Alan Mowbray, William Frawley

RADIO

• THE LONE WOLF
  (1948, Mutual)
  Based on characters created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Starring Walter Coy as THE LONE WOLF
  Later replaced by Gerald Mohr

TELEVISION

• THE LONE WOLF
  (1954)
  Syndicated as Streets of Danger
  39 episodes
  Based on characters created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Writers: Jonathan Latimer, others
  Starring Louis Hayward as THE LONE WOLF
  

• Season One
• "The Long Beach Story" (aka "The Smuggling Story")
• "The Avalanche Story" (aka The Reno Story")
• "The Chinese Story"
• "The Carnival Story"
• "The Blue Lantern Story"
• "The Ski Story"
• "The Plantation Story"
• "Pursuit"
• "The Malibu Story" (aka "Malibu-Laguna")
• "The Murder Story"
• "The Honolulu Story"
• "Skid Row"
• "The Arena"
• "The Karachi Story"
• "The Las Vegas Story" (May 14, 1955)
• "The Italian Story"
• "The Hunt"
• "The Oil Story"
• "The Boy Story"
• "The Emerald Ring"
• "The Department Store Story"
• "The Mexico Story"
• "The Art Story"
• "The Carlsbad Big Lie Story"
• "The Last Ballet Story"
• "The Beverly Hills Story"
• "The Jet Story"
• "The San Francisco Story"
• "The Savage"
• "Deep Sea Diving"
• "The Werewolf Story"
• "The Stamp Story"
• "The Minister Story"
• "The Robbery Story" (aka "Memo: Robbery")
• "The Wife Story"
• "The Planetarium Story"
• "The San Pedro Story"
• "The Runaway Story"
• "The Newhall Story" (aka "Phoenix-Newhall")
  
  
• Due to discrepancies in source material, the following episodes may -- or may not be alternative tiltes for the above episodes.
• "The Blue Lantern Story"
• "Centerville"
• "Death of a Lawyer"
• "Missing Child Story"

COMIC

• THE LONE WOLF
  (2003, Moonstone Books)
  48 pages, black & white
  Based (very very loosely) on a character created by Louis Joseph Vance
  Written by Dan Jolley & Marie Croall
  Art by Gabriel Rearte
  Cover by Doug Klauba

RELATED LINKS

• Moonstone Books
  For more information on the Lone Wolf graphic novels, this seems like a good place to start.
  
  
• The Saint and Leslie Charteris Blog
  A nice post on Dan Bodenheimer's Saint blog that traces the links between The Lone Wolf and Simon Templar another gentleman thief.

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Illustration by Doug Klauba, courtesy of Moonstone Comics.