Detectives have been the mainstay of both serials and movie series, and continue to feature in modern franchises. And while Asian detectives were an interesting sub-set of this genre, some of the many other detectives who graced our screens are interesting for different reasons.
Sherlock Holmes is likely the best known and most loved detective perhaps because he was one of the first, debuting in print in 1887 in A Study in Scarlet. But also because Holmes has continued to feature in more contemporary film and television productions. Holmes was also one of the first onscreen detectives, appearing in two short silent films in 1911 - The Stolen Legacy and The $500 Reward. To date he has appeared in 96 films in all, with more likely to follow, it’s hard not to see him cracking three figures.
While I’ll come back to Holmes, of more interest to me are the detectives with a smaller following and a lesser profile. Chief among them is a little known or little remembered detective known as The Lone Wolf.
The Lone Wolf was the nickname of fictional character Michael Lanyard, a jewel thief turned private detective who first appeared in print in 1914 in a series of novels written by Louis Joseph Vance. You can check them out in Audio book form by clicking here.
In all of Vance's books Lanyard (The Lone Wolf) is portrayed as a charming and lovable rogue who started out as a European jewel thief who had served his criminal apprenticeship under a mysterious Irishman named Bourke. We first meet him when he has turned his hand to detective work. What is especially interesting about the Wolf was his weakness for damsels in distress.
A man with a reputation for persistent womanising was known as a wolf, but the term has fallen out of use in more recent times. It may be more than a coincidence that the term was more commonly used when the Lone Wolf was better known.
It is believed that The Lone Wolf was the inspiration for Simon Templar, a Robin Hood-like figure better known as The Saint. Templar was also a ladies man, with on again, off again girlfriends, and open relationships which allowed him to flirt regularly with the women he encountered.
The term ‘Lone Wolf’ is commonly used (perhaps overused) today and its origins are surprisingly recent. It is widely accepted as an Americanism, with some tracing it back to Native Americans. Their names, when roughly translated into English, would often include the name of a native animal.
Guipago, also known as ‘Lone Wolf’, was a principal chief of the Kiowa who lived in what became Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado. He led raids on white settlers, buffalo skinners and others in the vain hope of driving them out. After a period of incarceration, Lone Wolf died of malaria in 1879. Though his name never registered in the same way as contemporaries such as Sitting Bull’s did.
As you’ll see in the graph above, common usage of the term Lone Wolf was almost non-existent prior to the turn of the century, but took off initially during the period when the eight Lone Wolf Books were published (between 1914 and 1934) and was sustained during the production of the film series between 1917 and 1947.
Twenty four films were produced in total with nine different actors playing the Lone Wolf. The first six in the series were silent films, and while the producers tried a few different actors, the mainstay of this period was Bert Lytell.
Lytell was a versatile actor who made his start in touring theatre companies, later progressing on to Broadway productions, appearances in Vaudeville and later featuring on radio. The Lone Wolf (1917) was his film debut and he made four more in the series, the last two being talking pictures The Lone Wolf's Daughter (1929) and Last of the Lone Wolf (1930)
The Lone Wolf remained both a criminal and a private investigator through his next three films in which he was played by three different actors Thomas Meighan, Melvyn Douglas and Francis Lederer.
In 1939's The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt, he had become a reformed gentleman thief and amateur sleuth on the side of the good guys. And the producers had found the actor they wanted permanently in the title role… Warren William.
Before accepting this role William had already appeared in well know roles such as Detective Philo Vance and criminal defense lawyer Perry Mason. The Lone Wolf films that William appeared in relied heavily on comedy for their appeal, with his first outing, The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (1939), being a reworking of 1929’s The Lone Wolf’s Daughter. Of note was the appearance of Ida Lupino as his girlfriend, and Rita Hayworth as a slinky spy. The film is considered William’s best among the films he appeared in from the series.
William’s next outing in The Lone Wolf Meets a Lady (1940) saw the arrival Jamison, played by Eric Blore, the Wolf’s light-fingered valet Jamison who, like every good sidekick, got tangled up in the plot in between moments of comic relief. William stuck with the series for a total of nine films until his untimely death in 1948 when the role for the final three films was handed to Gerald Mohr
In 1948 The Lone Wolf moved to radio where he began a new career, with a focus on his role as a private eye, although the cops still didn't trust him given his history as a jewel thief . The radio series proved to be sufficiently successful to spawn a 1954 television series. The TV show produced a new iteration of the Wolf, with actor Louis Hayward playing the character as a retired French gentleman by day, and the shadowy Lone Wolf by night.
If you’re interesting in seeing more of The Lone Wolf you’ll find most of his films and TV episodes here.