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By PAUL BRENNER
Two minor Lon Chaney films
from 1919 have been dredged up from the bowels of
the earth to make up a Chaney-Lite double feature
from Image Entertainment. The two films offer an
early peek at the burgeoning talents of Lon
Chaney, valuable to see from a film scholar's
point-of-view since very few of the 116 films made
by Lon Chaney from 1913 to 1919 survive; only
nineteen films exist in some form or another, with
only ten of those nineteen surviving as complete
films.
One of the reasons for this situation is the greed
and short-sightedness of Universal Studios, who, in
the late 1940s, seeing no value in their backlog
of silent films, but seeing much value in the
silver base in the celluloid masters of their
silent films, destroyed most of their silent film
output from 1912 to 1930, well over 5,000 shorts
and features, solely in order to reclaim the
silver from the nitrate film stock.
One of the films no doubt destroyed in the scrap
heap was "The Wicked Darling," the first film
collaboration between Chaney and Tod Browning,
although it doesn't really matter since the film
is a flimsy vehicle for silent film star Priscilla
Dean. The film was discovered in the 1990s in a
scratched and mildewed condition in the
Netherlands Film museum. But despite some
interesting technical experiments by Browning
(filming actual night shots instead of coloring
the film in a blue tint to indicate nighttime),
the film is a curio at best. Dean, in spite of
being the star, can't carry the film and Chaney,
as a shady criminal pest named Stoop Connor, hangs
around the fringes of the frame, glaring and
rolling his eyes to annoy both Dean and the
audience.
"Victory" is another matter entirely. Since this
is a Paramount release rather than a Universal
film, the print is in much better condition. Based
on a Joseph Conrad tale, "Victory" stars Jack Holt
as Axel Heyst, who lives alone, silent and
inscrutable, on the isle of Saburan in the South
Seas, declaring that he wants nothing to do with
love or death (two things he will have a lot to do
with within the 60 minute running time of the
film). In no time his self imposed seclusion is
busted when he ventures to a neighboring island's
hotel (run by Wallace Berry in a cheap beard and
looking like Trotsky) to hear an all-girl band and
falls stoically in love with Alma (Seena Owen), a
violinist who won't mingle with the customers.
Chaney appears with a trio of cutthroats as dumb
and dangerous sidekick Ricardo. Here we have
Chaney in all his glory, riding roughshod over all
the other players (except for Berry; the two have
a scene together that is like a tap-dance
challenge for eye rolls) and delivering a
fascinating performance in a minor role. Chaney
dominates the film . . . almost. "Almost" because
the film is directed by Maurice Tourneur (in the
first of three films with Chaney) and Tourneur's
painterly compositions is a master class in silent
film style. The viewer is carried along on a
hallucinatory journey solely on Tourneur's skill
as a director. Tourneur's images elevate the film
into much more ethereal plane than what it is (but
even Tourneur has trouble navigating the speed
bump of an ending which plays like a two-minute
warning when all the characters suddenly drop all
pretenses and engage in an abrupt killing spree to
deliver the film to a speedy conclusion).
Both films are mesmerizing artifacts of a lost
era. But once the curiosity value is gone,
"Victory" is the film that holds its own as an
extraordinary piece of moviemaking, while "The
Wicked Darling" is merely a conversation piece.
For Chaney obsessives, this double bill is worth
the purchase; for others, let's all just hold
hands and pray "London After Midnight" is
rediscovered in a Jesuit mausoleum in Jakarta. |
