The False Faces (1919)

Memorable, crazy movie

How sad is this?

The acting in this movie is really good.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

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.

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).

The story for "The False Faces" is taken from a novel by Louis Joseph Vance based on a character he created called 'The Lone Wolf'. Films about WW1 made during WW1 are interesting. The opening stages of Irvin Willat's "The False Faces" hark forward six & eleven years to the battle sequences in "The Big Parade" & "All's Quiet on the Western Front" respectively. Indeed both King Vidor & Lewis Milestone must've viewed portions of this film. 1919 was a break out year for Lon Chaney with "The Wicked Darling", "Victory", and the hugely successful "The Miracle Man". "The False Faces" is Chaney's first film of 1919 so it was probably made while WW1 was still going on(before November 11 1918). The film actually stars Henry B. Walthall as a Sidney Reilly type spy, 'The Lone Wolf'. Quite possibly a double agent. The movie is a potpurri of a spy cheating officials and officials cheating the spy. Director Willat has scenes that occur on board a real passenger liner and later in a submarine. Amazing that Willat could obtain the use of a sub for his film. Chaney plays a man called Ekstrom in several disguises & whom 'The Lone Wolf' harbors a personal vengeance against. Ekstrom is a German w/spiked helmet, an officer on an ocean liner, a sub captain and a shaven adventurer in drawing room back on shore. An actress called Mary Anderson plays the sole female character in this film. A popular and pretty actress in the silents, she's all but forgotten today. Irving Willat's brother, Edwin Willat, is the cinematographer. The print of this film survives generally in good condition but some of the intertitles are so blacked out that they can't be read. Grapevine video actually replaced key titles so to hold the viewer to the story. The latter part of the film tends to get melodramatic. But the highlight scenes are on a real passenger liner(makes some think of the Titanic & Lusitania) and a real submarine with scenes that hark forward to 'Destination Tokyo' and 'Das Boot'. Most films about WW1 made during WW1 tend to be propaganda or over the top grotesque comedies aimed at Germans. This movie is a little bit of both but alas one of the more tamer films compared to others.

Henry B. Walthall (Michael Lanyard, also known as The Lone Wolf) struggles to get an important document from behind the German Lines to British Intelligence in New York with help from US operatives Mary Anderson (Cecilia Brooke) and Thornton Edwards (Lieutenant Thackery). However, they must evade German Intelligence agents headed by the dastardly Lon Chaney (Karl Eckstrom).Made as anti-German propaganda during the war starting from a pulp fiction story. Lon Chaney fans may be disappointed since he mainly plays a secondary role.The reconstructed print was mode from very good materials and is wonderfully tinted. Unfortunately, some of the titles are hard to read.