The session: "Happy 140th Birthday, Lon Chaney, Sr."
This month we watch silent movies starring the one and only Lon Chaney, Sr.
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Week 3: The Monster (1925)
Directed by Roland West
My Impressions Going In:
Never heard of it
A nebishy would-be detective is investigating strange disappearances near an insane asylum
Reaction and Other Folderol:
This is a Lon Chaney month. In theory, each of these movies should feature Chaney as the star. In a sense, then, this is kind of the odd man out. Chaney is prominent, but he's not really the star. The main character is the amateur detective, played as a bowling pin-like guy by the forgettable (and, I suppose, forgotten) Johnny Arthur. And yet, such is the greatness of Lon Chaney that he manages to take over every scene he's in. By dint of charisma, he seizes stardom. Which shouldn't surprise. He actually got top billing despite being not the star.
In some ways, it's easy now, a century after this was made, to dismiss this as a lot of stuff I've seen in other movies. But it's important to remember that The Monster was setting the template. Was this the first movie to feature soul transference? Was Chaney's portrayal of Ziska the blueprint for the mad doctor? When I watched the Star Trek episode, "Whom Gods Destroy," was I viewing a direct descendant of this movie? And were the Three Stooges influenced by the slapstick comedy in this movie?
Again, it's hard to give a rating to a movie that's so different from what I'm used to, but I tried...
Ratings
Me: 9
Christina: 9.1
Dave: 9.5
Ethan: 8.5
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