Tag Archives: Silent Film

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

WALLACE WORSLEY’S THE PENALTY (1920) STARRING LON CHANEY

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Wallace Worsley made five films with silent movie icon . Lamentably, two of those, Voices of the City (1921) and The Blind Bargain (1922), are lost. The Ace of Hearts (1921) survives, but their most famous collaborations remain The Penalty (1920) and the epic Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).  It is for these two films Worsley, an otherwise undistinguished commission director, will be remembered, if at all.  The Penalty was Chaney’s first starring role, and the film justifiably made him a major star.

The plot of The Penalty is beautifully absurd, operatic, and addictive.  An injured young boy has been unnecessarily mutilated by a young Dr. Ferris (Charles Clary).  A seasoned colleague arrives and tells Dr. Ferris that amputating the boy’s legs was not at all necessary, but the veteran promises to remain silent about the malpractice.  The bed-ridden boy hears the conversation and tells his parents what has transpired.  However, the boy’s revelation is dismissed as delirium cause by a contusion.

Twenty seven years later, the boy has become Frisco’s criminal master-mind, nicknamed the Blizzard.  Chaney’s performance as the Blizzard is a tour-de-force that was achieved through a painful pulleys, belts, leather stumps, and a harness which strapped his legs behind him.  Because of the extreme contortion and discomfort to the actor, Chaney’s scenes were filmed in short takes.  His performance is amazing.  He swings, pulls, and climbs with such robust, Tex Avery-like vigor that the illusion is feverishly complete.  Only Douglas Fairbanks could exude as much screen energy, but while Fairbanks grinned his way through elaborate stunts, Chaney invited you to see him sweat and even laugh with him through his pain.

Still from The Penalty (1920)The Blizzard runs a complex syndicate which local law enforcement cannot penetrate.  Desperate, officials send an undercover agent, Rose (Ethel Gray Terry) into Chaney’s lair.  The criminal is abusive, misogynist, seedy, and initially lacking in sympathy.  There is a dark, latent sexual undercurrent between the Blizzard and Rose.  Only music calms the Blizzard, and Rose serves as his feet, pushing the pedals of his piano while he plays.

The Blizzard is part Ahab and part Dr. Mabuse, plotting an elaborate (and far-fetched) revenge against the entire city (which involves utilizing the straw man communist menace.  The fifties was not the first Red Scare era, and Worsley’s earlier Ace of Hearts projected a similar paranoia).  Continue reading WALLACE WORSLEY’S THE PENALTY (1920) STARRING LON CHANEY →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

VICTOR SJOSTROM’S HE WHO GETS SLAPPED (1924) STARRING LON CHANEY

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He Who Gets Slapped (1924) is part of the 2011 Warner Archive Lon Chaney collection, and in this film Chaney gives one of his most natural, assured performances—in no small part due to director ,  who also directed Chaney, with Norma Shearer, in the following year’s Tower Of  Lies (unfortunately, yet another lost film).  Victor Sjostrom is something of an icon.  He was a favorite director of stars Greta Garbo and Lillian Gish, and his masterpiece, The Phantom Carriage (1921), was a considerable influence on .  After the coming of sound Sjostrom retired from directing to return to his first love of acting, but he still served as mentor to the young Bergman; Bergman repaid the favor by casting Sjostrom in the extraordinarily beautiful role of Dr. Isak Borg  for Wild Strawberries (1957, possibly Bergman’s greatest film).

After seeing the films Sjostrom had made in Sweden, Producer Irving Thalberg  recruited Sjostrom to Hollywood.  He Who Gets Slapped was the first film the director made at MGM, and it proved to be a lucrative endeavor for all concerned.  Sjostrom was one of the few directors respected by both Louis B. Mayer and Thalberg.  He Who Gets Slapped is based off the 1914 play by Leonid Andreyev.  The resulting film looks, thinks and acts far more European than anything Hollywood studios had produced at that time.

It is a tale of degradation, humiliation, pathos, and sacrifice.  Thankfully, it is a film in which we do not find ourselves rooting for the Donald Trumps or Paris Hiltons of the world.  Chaney is the destitute but prolific scientist Paul Beaumont, so dedicated in his work that he, inevitably, is rendered the oblivious fool.  Beaumont’s filthy rich patron is the Baron de Regnard (Marc McDermott).  Regnard has been helping himself to Beaumont’s selfish wife Maria (Ruth King) and additionally plans to steal the fruit of Beaumont’s scientific labors.

Still from He Who Gets Slapped (1924)The world of Paul Beaumont comes crashing down when Regnard presents Beaumont’s work, as his own, to the Academy.  Beaumont tries, in vain, to convince the Academy of the theft, but they take the side of the affluent Regnard as opposed to the unknown, poverty stricken Beaumont.  Beaumont is belittled  by his patron’s betrayal, by the mocking laughter of the academy, by the discovery of his wife’s infidelity, and, finally, by Regnard’s humiliating slap to his face.  It is a slap which Beaumont now obsessively echoes in repetition every night.  On the Continue reading VICTOR SJOSTROM’S HE WHO GETS SLAPPED (1924) STARRING LON CHANEY →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

ROLAND WEST’S THE MONSTER (1925) STARRING LON CHANEY

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The Monster (1925) is part of  the extensive Warner Archive Collection 2011 releases. This film, directed by Roland V. West and starring Lon Chaney, goes a considerable length to prove the adage that “there is nothing new under the sun.” Essentially, The Monster is the precursor for the tongue-in-cheek old-dark-house-with-malevolent-horror-star-as-host movie. Considerably later,Vincent Price and William Castle visited The Monster‘s familiar territory in the House on Haunted Hill (1959), a film that has become the stereotypical example of the genre.

Director Roland V. West revisited The Monster territory again in the following year’s hit, The Bat and, yet again with sound in The Bat Whispers (1930) (for which he is most remembered—well, he may actually be best remembered for giving  a deathbed confession that he murdered his girlfriend Thelma Todd).The Monster is the least known of West’s dark house trilogy and, although it is the weakest of the three, it retains interest for several reasons.

The Monster is an oddity in the way it uses star Chaney. Chaney’s body of work goes a considerable distance in debunking his reputation as a “horror” actor.  The few horror films Chaney appeared in are more aptly described as bizarre, densely psychological melodramas.  The Monster, however, could serve as a prototype for a genre celebrity in a B-movie parody. Chaney’s Dr. Ziska is strictly cartoon horror.  He could romp with Baron Boris in Mad Monster Party (1967), or brew up a Gossamer with Bugs in Hare-Raising Hare (1946).

Hick amateur Johnny (Johnny Arthur) has just gotten his detective license in the mail, just in time to try and solve a local whodunit disappearance. Johnny, the local nerd, has his eye on Betty (Gertrude Olmstead) but she’s on the arm of the local jock hero. If only Johnny could solve the case and win the girl. This setup leads the three teens to the local spooky house run by Dr. Ziska, a mad surgeon running a former sanitarium. Ziska is aided by caped ghoul who rolls imagined smokes and, with the aid of a mirror, plays saboteur to cars on lonely back roads. Ziska is also assisted by the hulking mute, Rigo.

Still from The Monster (1925)Trap doors, laundry chutes, secret basements and an electric chair are the props in West’s dream-world. Chaney’s Ziska is surprisingly foppish with smoking jacket, a flapper-like quellazaire, and a wayward eyebrow. Ziska wears a menacing grin at all times, making him a possible first member of a Grand Guignol Three Stooges which might include Lionel Atwill and Bela Lugosi in their lean salad days. Foppish or not, Ziska is man enough to get aroused when he straps poor Betty to the table. With Rigo’s Frankenstein monster-like presence, about the only thing missing is a Vampirella to play opposite Ziska’s Dr. Deadly.

The Monster is not great cinema, its not the best West, best Chaney, or best Old Dark House movie ( would deliver that seven years later), but it is silent pulp and, in the right mindset, it can take you back to the days of milk duds and acne.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

TOD BROWNING’S THE MYSTIC (1925)

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Tod Browning‘s frequent collaborator Waldemar Young wrote the screenplay for The Mystic from Browning’s story, and it is clearly part their family of work together which includes The Unholy Three (1925), The Blackbird (1926), The Show (1927), The Unknown (1927), London After Midnight (1927), West of Zanzibar (1928), and Where East is East (1929).  The early knife-throwing act seen here could be a blueprint for the same act in The Unknown.  The Mystic (1925) opens in a Hungarian gypsy carnival.  The main attraction of the carnival is “The Mystic,” Zara (Aileen Pringle).  Zara is  part of a trio which includes Poppa Zazarack (Mitchell Lewis) and Zara’s lover Anton (Robert Ober).  Of course, Zara’s clairvoyant act is all illusion and Browning, as usual, lets his audience in on the trickery almost from the outset.

Still from The Mystic (1925)Conman Michale Nash (Conway Tearle) approaches the trio with a proposal to take their act to America, where they can bilk  naive, rich Manhattanites out of their fortunes. The New Yorkers make Zara’s seances a hit, although not all of the natives are so gullible, and the police are secretly investigating the scam.  To complicate matters, Nash puts the moves on Zara, and Anton is pushed aside.  Love does funny things, and soon Nash develops a conscience.  He becomes reluctant to swindle a young heiress.  The ever-jealous Zara believes Nash must want her for himself; but, Nash simply wants to reform and make a better, honest life for Zara.  Their relationship is reminiscent of the one between Priscilla Dean and Wheeler Oakman in Browning’s Outside The Law (1920), as are the familiar Browning themes of reformation and unpunished crimes.

Pringle shows considerable screen charisma; or, at least, Browning draws it out of her here.  Her performance compares to other great female roles in Browning’s ouevre: Joan Crawford in The Unknown and Lupe Velez in Where East is East.  In many scenes, such as the knife throwing scene, Pringle looks remarkably like Crawford; in close-ups, Pringle exudes the same soft sensuality and subtle anguish.  In other scenes, Pringle shares the bubbly quality that we see later in Velez’s performance. At other times Pringle calls to mind the mysterious exoticism of Edna Tichenor.  Unfortunately, Pringle and Browning never got to work together again.  The actress was reportedly difficult to work with; most of her co-stars considered he an intellectual snob.  Indeed, she kept company with many of the artisans and intellectuals of her day.  George Gershwin and H.L. Mencken were among her notable lovers and she was married, briefly, to author James M. Cain.  Pringle’s acting career never really took off, and she didn’t seem to care.  She remained active in films (mostly small parts, which included uncredited roles) up until the mid 1940s and died in 1989 at the age of 94.

Because of the lack of usual Browning stars, The Mystic is an interesting, lesser known film in the director’s canon.  Not only is it thematically related to his other films, but it also shows the idiosyncratic continuity of his taste in actresses and his ability to mold actors, whoever they were.

Note: the luxurious costumes for The Mystic were the work of legendary French designer Erté.  Erté, who was a big fan of Georges Méliès, later said it was a thrilling experience to collaborate with such a distinguished surrealist as Tod Browning.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

THE NEW NIGHTMARE THEATER WITH SAMMY TERRY: FIRST IMPRESSIONS (WITH EDISON’S FRANKENSTEIN: 1910)

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I have gotten several requests to do a write up on the new “Nightmare Theater” with Sammy Terry.  Despite the requests, I have been reticent for several reasons.  The new Nightmare Theater is in the grass roots stage, although whether or not it should be is debatable.  After all, Sammy Terry has a fifty year legacy, so it should not be a case of having to compete with the Johnny-come-lately horror hosts, of whom there are far too many of dreadful quality.  With his long history, Sammy Terry could be venturing into new territory, rather than reconquering the market of local television, especially since local television really no longer exists.

The first and most glaring problem with contemporary horror hosts is the question of whether they’re needed.  In the golden age of horror hosts there were a half dozen or so local television stations, and the video/cable/Internet age was something akin to science fiction.  If one wanted to watch James Whale‘s Frankenstein (1931), then you might get the chance to see it once a year via the local host, who, in our case in Indianapolis, was Sammy Terry on WTTV 4.  Today, the horror host is simply not a necessity, so in order to entice an audience the host should have interesting personalty, story, and characterization.  Today’s hosts simply get up and do their shtick.  Often, one questions whether or not they have even watched the hosted film.  If the host wants the audience to acknowledge his or her entertainment value, then his enthusiasm needs to be contagious.  It rarely is.  The host hardly has to have a back story and, indeed, some sense of mystery should be retained.  Today’s audience is much more sophisticated; the personality of the host, and his or her ability to make us care, is vital.  Instead, contemporary horror hosts can often be seen hawking their wares at various horror conventions, seeming more like used car salesmen than mysterious entities.

Mark Carter is the son of Bob Carter, the original Sammy Terry.  Bob has retired and has passed the cape onto Mark, who is a dead ringer for his dad.  Mark has an answer for the inevitable question “are you the Son of Sammy Terry?”—a classic “only Sammy’s blood has worn this cape.”  Unfortunately, Mark’s ready-made response has yet to be put to use in an actual public interview.  Instead, when local news programs interviewed the new Sammy Terry, he broke character when the question arose, which was a misstep.

I fondly reviewed the original Nightmare Theater two years ago, but the primary reason I have been reluctant to do this follow-up is because I have numerous associates working on the Continue reading THE NEW NIGHTMARE THEATER WITH SAMMY TERRY: FIRST IMPRESSIONS (WITH EDISON’S FRANKENSTEIN: 1910) →