cinema history class: west of zanzibar (1928)

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: West of Zanzibar (1928)
Directed by Tod Browning

My Impressions Going In:

I had heard of this, and had seen the 1932 movie, Kongo, based on the same play. In fact, I saw it at Keith's.

Plot:

Phroso, the magician (Lon Chaney) gets crippled in a fight. So he builds a life for himself in the African jungle, where he can dream of revenge.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

For information, we saw the 1932 film,  Kongo (which is a remake of this), in class about 2½ years ago. I wrote about that here.

Going in, I was expecting to like this better than Kongo. Admittedly, that's a tall order -- I gave Kongo a 10. But this starred Lon Chaney who was arguably the best actor in cinema history. And we were going to watch him playing a paraplegic two weeks after we saw his amazing performance as a double amputee. Surely this would be a walk in the park for him. Since I will compare the performances, I am including a clip of Walter Huston in Kongo:

Comparing the two performances is tough, as they are both so strong.  Chaney was better at playing the paraplegic. The way he let his legs act dead was completely convincing. I was particularly taken with the way he would use his arms to pick up his legs and cross them. Huston was good, but not as good. There were a couple moments where it appears that he is putting weight on a leg. On the other had, I think Huston's overall look was more appropriate for the role. The scraggly hair and beard, and the big scar across the nose just work well. I won't say that Chaney looks wrong for the part -- just that he's not as good. And that brings us to the voice. Huston, in the role of Flint, has the perfect voice. It's exactly what I'd expect from that grizzled and bitter old man. Of course, we don't get to hear Chaney's voice because West of Zanzibar was a silent film,* so you can't really compare. Of course, that's not really Chaney's fault. And it's not even a flaw in the film. Still, the voice aspect of Kong does give it an edge.

West of Zanzibar does have a fuller backstory, which makes Chaney's version of Flint a more sympathetic villain. That's consistent with what I've seen in the several Lon Chaney films that I've seen recently (including the ones in Keith's class. It's kind of interesting -- Chaney plays a venal, hateful character with a backstory that makes him understandable and almost likable.

I also liked the ending to West better, as it's darker and more haunting.

Ultimately, West was a great movie. And there were ways that it was better than Kongo. But all things considered it wasn't quite as good.

Ratings

Me: 9.5

Bob-O: 10

Dave: 9.6

Ethan: 10

Joe: 10

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*In fact, Chaney only did one talkie in his career -- 1930's The Unholy Three, which was a remake of the 1925 silent film of the same name (which also starred Chaney).