Wolfe made his film debut in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" (1934). He appeared in many notable films, including "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935), Alfred Hitchcock's "Saboteur" (1942), "Julius Caesar" (1953), James Dean's "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) and George Lucas's "THX 1138" (1971). Although he was American by birth, his experience in the theatre gave him precise diction, and he was often cast as Englishmen on screen, including a fictional commissioner of Scotland Yard in the final film in the 1939-1946 Sherlock Holmes film series, "Dressed to Kill" (1946). He also appeared in two other films in the series, as an American antiques dealer in "Sherlock Holmes in Washington" (1943), and as an art dealer in "The Pearl of Death" (1944). He played Carter, Sir Wilfrid Robarts's clerk and office manager in "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957).