Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!

Pluskylang Great Film overall

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

JohnHowardReid Definitely one for Henry B. Walthall fans, I notice this one has a range of reviews from the very top entertainment score to the very bottom. I'd place it a bit more than halfway. True, Alpha's black- and-white print is somewhat dupey, but at least it is complete and there are some good action scenes including a knockout-knockdown climax between villainous Chaney and heroic Walthall. Chaney fans, however, may well be disappointed that although Lon plays a really despicable villain, he does so with little charisma. Also, Irvin Willat in his capacity as both scriptwriter and director focuses his attention almost entirely on Walthall. Although Chaney's part is reasonably large, he is obviously secondary in the writer/director's mind. Also, to his admirers' dismay, for his role here as a really nasty German, Chaney is using very little make-up. Chaney's oft- repeated publicity claim that the only movie in which he appeared without special make-up was Tell It To the Marines (1926) is just that: Publicity! Aside from False Faces, I could cite at least three or four other movies, in which he appears without special make-up. Nevertheless, it's good to have this movie available at a very affordable price from Alpha.

briantaves 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).

Michael_Elliott False Faces (1919) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Henry B. Walthall plays a spy known as The Lone Wolf who must sneak behind enemy lines and captures a cylinder so that he can get it back in Allie hands but it won't be easy because of a committed German (Lon Chaney). This film runs a short 76-minutes but it feels much longer because the film tries to do so much in so little time that the thing grows tiresome as it goes on. For the majority of the film we see The Lone Wolf trying to track down what he needs as it keeps getting passed from one set of hands to another and at times who has the item is rather confusing. Another problem is that some of the sets (just take a look at the submarine) are poorly done and aren't too believable. What does work is some very good use of tint, which helps bring the film to life somewhat. Another aspect that works is the use of ghosts to show the torment of one of the characters but this too turns somewhat sour when a ghost is killed by a gunshot. This here doesn't make too much sense no matter how you look at it. I was surprised at how well Walthall handled the role and thought he did a very good job with it. Fans of Chaney might be disappointed that he has very little to do here but he really sticks out with an intense performance. The film, once thought lost, was eventually found and remastered but a lot of the intertitles are very hard to read.

lovesick80 This is a forgotten film for the most part, but not hard to buy online. The late great Henry B. Walthall (best known as The Little Colonel from "Birth of a Nation") plays dashing Michael Lanyard, aka "The Lone Wolf" whose thieving ways have made him a target for the authorities all over the world.His skills as a thief enable him to get around several very sticky situations, as you will see in the film. The main storyline revolves around Lanyard's pursuit of Karl Eckstrom (played by Lon Chaney) who led a raid that killed Lanyard's sister and nephew. His seeking of revenge takes him from the battlefield of The Great War (WW1), in which he dodges the searchlights by dropping "dead" when the lights hit him, to the U.S.S. Assyrian, where he meets Cecilia Brooke and Lt. Thackeray, who entrust him with a cylinder containing important information which the enemy is willing to kill to get. Lanyard is ambushed by Eckstrom and Co., where the cylinder is stolen by Eckstrom, and Lanyard thrown overboard just prior to the ship's sinking. It is interesting to watch Walthall floating in the water seemingly to his death, when very slowly a submarine surfaces beneath him! This submarine was the cause of the ship's sinking, and its drunken captain was also the man behind the sinking of the Lusitania. Needless to say, Lanyard finds himself cracking into the submarine's safe and stealing money while left alone for a brief moment, then bearing witness to the murder of the captain. He escapes to New York, where he catches up with Cecilia Brooke (among the survivors of the Assyrian) and Eckstrom, which builds to a very interesting twist in which Eckstrom gets his just desserts, and Lanyard gets the girl.All in all, this is a wonderfully action-packed film where you get to see Chaney without makeup for the most part, and Walthall in one of his best roles of his silent career. There are a few laughs here and there, a lot of suspense, and a great cat-and-mouse game is played between the two main characters. If you're a silent film buff, you must see this!