The And the In Detective Fiction Fiction Fiction Fiction Fiction,

there are plenty of crooks who change teams

to the side of law and order,

thieves and rogues who put their criminal know-how

to work against other lawbreakers.

In the realm of old-time radio,

the best known of these may be Boston Blackie.

But there was also Michael Lanyard, a debonair jewel thief turned private detective.

To friend and foe alike, Lanyard was better known as the lone wolf.

The character first appeared in novels by Louis Joseph Vance, the first of which was published in 1914.

It's said that the lone wolf influenced Leslie Charterous when he was creating Simon

Templar, aka the Saint.

Columbia Pictures bought the movie rights to the Lone Wolf, and from the silent era

up through the late 1940s, they cranked out a series of lone wolf pictures.

In the early films, Lanyard was still firmly a villain,

albeit a charming rogue in the vein of Harry Lyme.

But with the casting of Warren William and the release of

1939's The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt, Michael Lanyard officially moved to the

reformed side of the fence. The dashing war to the stars of the 1930s, he was the first actor to portray Perry Mason on the big screen.

He starred in four Mason movies between 1934 and 1936. While he was starring as The lone wolf, he played Detective Philovance in a pair of films. And in 1936, William starred as Ted Shane, the renamed Sam Spade in Warner Brothers Satan

met a lady, their second attempt at adapting the Maltese Falcon.

Beginning with 1940s, the Lone Wolf meets a lady, Michael Lanyard picked up a side kick,

...