West of Zanzibar (1928)

The wife of circus magician Phroso (Lon Chaney) leaves him for another man (Lionel Barrymore) and in the scuffle, Phroso is injured and loses the use of his legs. Wife Ann returns dead (not sure how that happened) with her lover’s child. The treacherous Crane becomes an ivory trader in Africa so Phroso follows suit to plot his revenge.

It has been over five years since I saw the talkie remake but I remember the major beats of the story. The biggest difference in this shorter version is that the backstory is fleshed out better. If memory serves the remake starts in Africa and we learn in hindsight about the wife, child, and treachery.

So, Dead-leg’s plan is to lure Crane to his compound to show him his daughter, raised in a brothel and abused by Phroso. Based on the same play, both movies play out the same. Walter Houston starred in the stage version and Chaney was perhaps the perfect substitute at the time. Mary Nolan, cast because she had "tragic eyes", is exceptional as the horribly abused damsel. She would later take her own life. Probably.

It would be hard not to compare the two films, the biggest difference being the sound element. Both are pretty ugly films aesthetically, in subject matter, and in how they treat the Africans. The natives are primitive and childlike, easy fooled by sleight of hand and parlor tricks, allowing the white men to become like kings. All this while not being able to walk.

West of Zanzibar is an interesting, if a somewhat hard to watch film. The people and events are not pleasant, but that's what makes it stand out. AMRU 3.

He Who Gets Slapped (1924)

A poor, young scientist (Lon Chaney) finds the support of a wealthy Barron who steals his research and his wife. When he protests, he is slapped in front of bearded academic-types, who laugh at him. Laugh at him, I tell you! At which point he becomes a circus clown whose only shtick is to be slapped while people laugh at him.

Yes, this is another tragic film where Chaney is a carnival or circus performer who falls for a woman way too young and way out of his league. In this case it was Norma Shearer who for the duration of the film I mistook for Moira Shearer. Which would be weird as Moira wasn’t born yet. I know Chaney liked them young (on screen - he was no Charlie Chaplin) but that’s a bit too far.

Speaking of Norma, she was an almost big star and wife of producer Irving Thalberg. The workaholic (Irving, that is) produced ninety titles before dying of pneumonia at thirty seven. Five years into her career (Norma, that is), Slapped was her twenty third feature film. Norma would star in a great many films I've never seen and fall just short of Hollywood greatness because apparently she was cross-eyed. She would retire at 40 and live to a ripe old age of 80.

Not many on this film had that luxury. Chaney famously died at forty seven only six years later, but the evil Baron would match the age dying a year earlier. Chaney’s duplicitous wife would also die at forty seven, but that was over twenty years later. Her career would die much sooner. But let’s talk about John Gilbert.

Dashing John Gilbert was a silent matinee idol at the level of Rudolph Valentino, but come the advent of talkies, his star faded quickly. There are stories that his voice was wrong for leading roles, but that wasn’t true. The problem was his drinking and sudden lack of sizzle on screen. Jilted at the altar by Greta Garbo, he was never the same. He made ten or so talkies but only Garbo’s Queen Christina stands out. He would die of a heart attack a couple years later, at thirty eight. And so it goes.

The big news here is that a youngish Bela Lugosi is an extra somewhere in the background. I didn’t notice him but he was either wearing clown makeup or an academic-type beard. And, obviously, you don’t hear his voice. So, maybe BIG news was overselling it a bit.

There are some interesting things here. The score gave the clown performances a surreal feeling, and Chaney was at his prime. This, according to IMDb, is his second highest rated films behind The Unknown, my personal favorite. I thought it was well worth watching. AMRU 3.5.

“Laughter - the bitterest and most subtle death to hope…”

The Penalty (1920)

A young doctor makes the fateful decision to amputate the legs of an injured boy. His mentor sees that the younger doctor has made a rash decision but covers for him to the parents. But the boy knows the truth and grows up to be an evil criminal mastermind, bent on revenge.

Lon Chaney had his lower legs bound to achieve the illusion of being an amputee. Although he could not have them bound for more than ten minutes at a time, the illusion was quite successful. And his character was quite evil.

I waffle on calling The Penalty horror. I have a clear definition that grows muddier as time passes. An element of the supernatural is needed and regular old evil just won’t do. Chaney’s evil, however, is something special. Normally one can identify with his characters, even if just a little. Compassionate, flawed, and tragic. Here, not so much. Maybe as a boy who just lost his legs, but not during in the story proper. He bad.

Ethel Grey Terry played an agent sent undercover to get close to Chaney’s Blizzard, and there are strange parallels in the two actors real lives. Ethel was born six months before Lon and about four months after he passed she died from “an illness she'd suffered for over a year”, whatever that means. Both were veterans of silent cinema with one talkie credit each. Chaney’s a lackluster remake of a film he had done five years earlier, and Terry’s was a short done with her husband. Crime stories both. Terry’s Husband, it’s worth noting, retired from acting very shortly after her death, never remarried, and would commit suicide on the 35th anniversary of her passing. Chaney’s widow would die three years after him, on Halloween.

The Penalty strikes the right horror tone and Chaney’s performance is among his best. Overall, not among his best movies, but effective. AMRU 3.5.

“He’s gathered up his dance hall girls and he’s put them to work in his house - making hats - thousand of hats.”

The Unholy Three (1925)

A circus is closed down after a brawl, so some of the performers … you know what. Just go back and read the first paragraph I wrote for the 1930 remake. I’ll wait.

Ok, so we’re back. Yea. that, almost exactly. Same story. Same scenes, same pacing, some of the same stars. Even the sets looked alike. The courtroom scene in the third act was someone different, but the end result was the same. Oh, yea, and the ape was different. But the biggest difference was the tone. There was a certain goofiness in the remake, while the original was a serious drama.

Suddenly one day all movies had to be talkies, Just about no exceptions would be tolerated. What’s a studio to do? I know, remake recent successful silent films. London After Midnight (1927) became Mark of the Vampire (1935), West of Zanzibar (1928) became Kongo (1932). There’s a whole wiki article on the subject. Hollywood loves doing the same crap over again, but here the motivation here was to take advantage of the gimmick of sound rather than to reinterpret it for a newer audience. A similar thing happened again with the gimmick of color, but to a lesser extent.

Let’s talk about the ape, shall we? While the remake used veteran gorilla Charles Gemora in a suit, the original used an actual ape. A chimp, to be exact. While chimps are amazingly strong (tear your arms off, they will!), they aren’t large and imposing for screen purposes. So, director Tod Browning was resourceful. He filmed the chimp in scaled down sets for the tight shots and used a dwarf dressed as Chaney with his back turned in others. The illusion wasn’t always successful but the attempt was appreciated.

For two movies that are almost duplicates, the difference in tone was startling. Despite being silent certain elements of the story were clearer, specifically  Echo and the pickpocket’s relationship. Also, this was more believable. Mae Busch was five years older than Lila Lee at the time of filming, and Chaney aged a ton in the five years since. All in all, The Unholy Three adds credibility to the argument that Tod Browning excelled at silent direction. Sound direction, not so much. AMRU 3.

The Unholy Three (1930)

A circus is closed down after a brawl, so some of the performers go into business for themselves. Echo (Lon Chaney), a ventriloquist, Hercules, a strong man, and Tweedledee, a midget open a pet store as a front. Echo, disguised as an old woman, makes his birds talk. When the customer complains that they don’t anymore, our heroes visit and case the joint for robbing later. The heat is on when a burglary goes bad leaving one dead. Our bumbling crew frame nice guy Hector then lay low. Also in the gang is Rosie, a pickpocket apparently in a relationship with Echo, and a Gorilla, because, of course.

The Unholy Three (1930) is a remake of a silent film of the same name from five years earlier. The older is considered the better film but this stands as Chaney’s only spoken role. Adding voice to his transformative skills, he not only did two voices (normal and old lady) but also performed all of the ventriloquism in the film. He would die six weeks after the film’s release robbing Hollywood of a true acting genius.

A long while back I wondered what was up with all the gorillas in early talkie horrors. Mostly, that was Charles Gemora. Not the gorilla, the guy in the suit. He played similar roles in The Island of Lost Souls and the terrible Ghost Parade, as well as dozens of others. He was a makeup artist by trade.

There are many parallels between this film (and its predecessor) with Freaks (1932). Dwarf Harry Earles appeared in all three films, Tod Browning directed the silent Unholy and Freaks, all three have a character named Hercules, and the Circus setting, a favorite of Browning. Browning did excellent silent films and earned some acclaim with Freaks and Dracula (1931) but let’s face it. His sound films were a mess. Maybe he couldn’t adapt with the radically new style of storytelling that sound ushered in, or maybe it was all the drinking. He never did a retrospective interview about his career.

As the silent 1925 version is largely considered superior, it’s the one I normally come across. I was happy that TCM ran this version so I could finally hear Chaney speak. Not a terrible film but little to recommend it otherwise. As a Chaney fan I was glad to see it, but to be fair, it deserves a slightly lower grade. AMRU 2.5.

“The way you look at me. You and that horrible little midge. You give me the creeps!”

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

The career of young Opera singer Christine Daae is given a boost by a mysterious man known by the performers as The Phantom.

When The Phantom of the Opera was released, the source novel was only about fifteen years old, and this was already the second film adaptation. The first, a German film, is lost. Who knows how many more came afterwards.

This, like many Lon Chaney films, is about obsession. Young Christine is obsessed with stardom, for which she is willing to give up her true love. The Phantom is, of course, obsessed with Christine. She cannot love him because of his horrible disfigurement, if not for his age and creepy subterranean ways. It is a tragic story and the monster is the most tragic.

Here, Chaney sports his most famous and most effective make up. Not just his hideously scared face and mask but also his Red Death costume, resplendent in early colorization. Given time to assemble the pieces, this should be my Halloween costume.

There is room to pick nits with The Phantom of the Opera, but most of them surround title card editing. Despite that and serious on set problems, The Phantom cashed in at the box office. It was a sensation and was re-edited several times. This is Chaney's most famous role and arguably the best version ever filmed. AMRU 4.

"Beneath your dancing feet are the tombs of tortured men! Thus does The Red Death rebuke your merriment!"

London After Midnight (1927)

Five years after the suicide of a wealthy man, strange people lease his mansion. Maybe they're vampires!

Lon Chaney and Tod Browning made ten movies together and London After Midnight was their most successful, if not the highest praised. Come the sound era, it fell into obscurity, and was remade by Browning as Mark of the Vampire in 1935. The only known print was destroyed when an MGM vault caught fire, making it the most sought after lost film. Imagine my excitement when TCM put it on their Halloween schedule! Imagine my disappointment when I learned that I was to watch forty-five minutes of production stills and title cards.

There are a large number of high quality photos of the production and the producers did a fair job of combining them with new title cards and a better than fair score. However, the stills were frequently reused causing the story to became muddled. A noble effort for the materials at hand, but it came off as cheesy at times.

Interesting to film historians and recovering philistines like myself, but fairly hard to watch by any measure. If you have difficulty with movies that don't talk, movies that don't move is a non-starter. Glad I watched it, I suppose, and will wait for a copy to be rediscovered. Check your attics! AMRU 3.

The Monster (1925)

Local milquetoast aspires to be a detective. He investigates the case of a missing millionaire at an abandoned sanitarium.

This mediocre horror-themed comedy appears inspired by, but not nearly as good as, Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. Lon Chaney doesn't appear until a half hour into the movie and isn't given much interesting to do. There's fair atmosphere and some amusing haunted house gags, and did hold my attention for the duration, but it's simply not horror nor is it an exceptional comedy.

A Watchable, early, haunted house/mad scientist film, but otherwise unremarkable. Ben Mankewitz totally oversold this sucker. AMRU 3, mostly because Lon Chaney.

"Use your ingenuity"

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

Quasimodo is ugly, Esmeralda is hot, the archdeacon's brother is evil, Quasi is told to kidnap the gypsy, gets punished, gypsy chick shows him kindness, class struggle, Sanctuary, Sanctuary, nobody ever asks for whom the bell tolls. Roll credits.

The term "Silent Epic" doesn't totally stir in me what it might, but I'm a complete Lon Chaney junkie, and this was the first film he had a major influence in creating. He suggested the story and had a hand in casting. His makeup was state of the art and the scale grand. Still, bit of a snooze-fest.

Wow, am I done? There must be more to say. Little disappointed that there wasn't more Chaney in it. He reveled in the unrequited love theme and it's in there, but not highlighted. The archdeacon was a good guy in the movie because the studios didn't want a clerical villain. Apparently he was evil in the book. Don't really know. Victor Hugo wasn't on my summer reading list.

So, that's it. AMRU 3. Not bad. Would be nice if a quality copy was found. The surviving copy is real rough and has about fifteen minutes missing. It was the first Hollywood version and it would take 79 years and Disney to do a sequel. Bad idea. And knowing people who experienced Gypsies when living in Europe, Hollywood totally white-washed their reputation. I wonder how the 1939 version is ...

Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)

Travelling circus performer Tito (Lon Chaney) finds an abandoned child and decides, over the objections of his partner, to raise her. As she blossoms into a beautiful woman (Loretta Young), he discovers he has fallen in love with her. No, that's not creepy at all. Thanks for asking.

Because our sad clown must repress his forbidden love, all he can do is cry. His doctor, realizing that a woman is the blame for his ailment, gives the very bartenderly advice to tell this woman how he feels. As chance would have it, doc was also visiting with a patient who, because he lives a life of frivolity and pleasure, can only laugh. The advice for him is to find a woman, one woman, who he truly loves and settle down. The two men decide to hang out together, and unknowingly, woo the same dame. Go figure.

Another tragic romance for old friend Chaney. Certainly the best so far in the "Imperative, Noun, Imperative" genre of movie titles, edging out "Burn, Witch, Burn". Chaney again proves himself the master of non-verbal storytelling. And once again he left his mark on younger colleagues. Director Herbert Brenon would badger the 14 year old Loretta Young (ok, even creepier) when Chaney was not on the set. So, he was always present when she was working, even if he had no reason to be. For that Young said "I shall be beholden to that sensitive, sweet man until the day I die".

The movie is short (reel 4 is missing and presumed lost forever) and the story isn't anything to write Oscar about, but you can't take your eyes from Chaney. His emotive face and stage presence dominate every scene. Once again, I was totally sucked in. He appeared in a fair number of films before he died at ... about my age. Most are gone forever, but I'll try to see what's left. AMRU 4.

"Laugh, clown, laugh, even though your heart is breaking!"

The Unknown (1927)

Alonzo (Lon Chaney) is an armless knife thrower in a travelling gypsy circus. He is in love with the owner's daughter, the hot Nanon (Joan Crawford). Lucky for Alonzo, Nanon has a terrible fear of being embraced by men, and therefore feels safe around him. But he has a competitor: Malabar the strong man (Norman Kerry). Surely she would never fall for him.

Here is where we learn some secrets. Alonzo is not who, and what, he appears. The cops are searching for a man with two thumbs on one hand who has been committing thefts wherever the circus goes. And as Alonzo's obsession for Nanon grows we learn more of what he is willing to do to get her.

Here is the best silent movie I've ever seen.

Sound, I feel, is essential to telling a story. Silent cinema is a serious handicap that is almost impossible to overcome. But Lon Chaney was it's master. Dialog is unnecessary when looking at his expression. There is no doubt what is going through his mind. I wish I hadn't deleted it from my DVR.

Apart from Chaney's uncanny acting talent, what else is interesting? Until 1973 the only copies that existed were very poor quality bootleg versions, when it was revealed that a quality copy was found five years earlier but was hard to find because it was marked "Unknown". There are a couple scripted scenes that I'm unsure were ever filmed. If they were, I would love to see them. The movie is barely an hour long. Crawford long said that watching Chaney is where she truly learned to act.

There is not much more to say. Had Lon been born ten years later, and lived twenty years older, he would have been the undisputed king of Hollywood, but his lifestyle would be the end of him. Lon Chaney died of lung cancer three years after the movie's release. Director Tod Browning intended on using him in the title role of Dracula. The 6'2" Creighton wasn't a shadow of his 5'9" father. AMRU 4.5.

"Hands! Men's hands! How I hate them!"