AllMovie

The Lone Wolf, Louis Joseph Vance's celebrated thief-turned-sleuth, began his long association with Columbia Pictures in 1926's Return of the Lone Wolf. After a life of crime, gentleman jewel robber Michael Lanyard (Bert Lytell), aka the Lone Wolf, has -- to all intents and purposes -- reformed. But when his sweetheart Marcia Mayfair (Billie Dove) is robbed by a rival gang, Lanyard returns to his old tricks, operating on the theory that it takes a thief to catch a thief. Though the original Vance stories were heavily reliant on dialogue, Return of the Lone Wolf effectively tells its story in purely visual terms. Bert Lytell, who first played the Lone Wolf in 1917, would return to the role several times between 1926 and 1930.