West of Zanzibar (1928)

Directed by Tod Browning
Starring: Lon Chaney          
              Lionel Barrymore
              Mary Nolan
              Warner Baxter
Run time: 65 mins
Studio: MGM
Black & White

West of Zanzibar was the penultimate collaboration between director Tod Browning and actor Lon Chaney (the following year's Where East is East was the last) and explores familiar territory, with Chaney cast as yet another down-at-heel showman grievously wronged in love and out for revenge. But whereas 1927's The Unknown, morbid though it is, had an almost fairy-tale quality to it (owing to its circus setting and central love story) West of Zanzibar has no such redeeming feature; it’s a nasty, grubby little film, and quite possibly the most morally depraved of its era. That sounds as if I’m getting ready to knock it, but nothing could be further from the truth: although critical opinion generally favours The Unknown, I actually prefer West of Zanzibar. Indeed, it's one of my favourite films from the 1920s.

Browning wastes no time in laying his cards on the table: the film begins with a quote from the Anglican burial service - “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” – before cutting to a shot of a bleached skeleton propped in an upright coffin. Having symbolically established that death is going to be a prominent feature of the film, Browning then reveals that the coffin is part of a cheap trick being performed by a downmarket stage magician named Phroso (Lon Chaney), in which the skeleton is transformed into the beautiful form of Phroso’s wife, Anna (Jacqueline Gadsden).

Anna, we quickly learn, is a very unhappy woman. Leered at by the unsavoury-looking audience, she smiles and goes through the motions of putting on a show; but behind the scenes she is wracked by guilt and self-doubt as she contemplates leaving her husband and running away to Africa with a businessman named Crane (Lionel Barrymore) who is hoping to establish himself in the Congo region as an ivory merchant. We are given to distrust Crane from the start: when we first meet him he is lurking in the corner behind the dressing room door, waiting like some predatory animal for Anna's return. Realising that Anna's guilt is preventing her from telling Phroso about their affair, Crane offers to do the job for her and confronts Phroso in the theatre flies. As might be expected, Phroso is devastated on hearing the news, and the situation is only made worse by Crane's manifest delight at the sight of the magician's heartbreak and despair. Since there is no evidence of any history between the two men, or that Phroso has ever treated Anna badly, one can only assume that Crane's unfeeling behaviour stems from him simply being a sadistic bastard rather than from anything Phroso might have done to deserve such cruelty. Unfortunately, the confrontation turns physical and ends with Phroso falling from the balcony and breaking his spine on the stage below.

The Unknown (1927)

Directed by Tod Browning
Starring: Lon Chaney
              Joan Crawford
              Norman Kerry
Run time: 49 mins (originally 63)
Studio: MGM
Black & White

The Unknown is an example of a certain kind of horror movie that flourished in the 1910s and ‘20s, one that dealt with deformity and mutilation and fixated on the idea of the ugly as monstrous. The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera are two obvious examples, but there were many others. It has been suggested (in the documentary film Universal Horror, for instance) that one of the reasons people responded to these films may have been because of the unprecedented numbers of maimed and mutilated soldiers that were returning from the Great War; soldiers who in previous conflicts would have died from their injuries but who now acted as unwelcome reminders of mankind's capacity for senseless cruelty and violence. It was the horror film as catharsis.

The director most associated with this kind of film is Tod Browning, and together with actor Lon Chaney he produced a string of films during this period in which Chaney played a variety of violent and murderous cripples. Browning, who at the age of sixteen had run away to join the circus, was able to draw inspiration for several of these films from his experiences as a traveller with various carnivals, where he had mixed with the extraordinary individuals who made up the freak shows that were popular in their day. Thus he was able to bring to his work a very personal perspective on the theme of physical deformity. Browning certainly acknowledged the horror that his audiences felt at the sight of disfigurement, but he refused to let them have it all their own way - in his most famous film, 1932's Freaks, he subverted expectations by presenting the sideshow freaks as basically honourable and decent people, while it was the 'normal' characters who were evil and monstrous, exploiting the freaks for personal gain. While it was quite possibly an expression of natural sympathy on the director's part, this theme of exploitation might also have been Browning's indictment on a society that came to his films in the hope of justifying its prejudices and assuaging its guilt. The theme of exploitation is also present in The Unknown, where the central character, an evil amputee, isn't quite what he at first appears to be.

The film opens with crowds arriving at Antonio Zanzi's gypsy circus, where Alonzo the Armless (Chaney), "sensation of sensations...wonder of wonders", is about to perform his death-defying knife act with Zanzi's daughter, the beautiful Nanon (Joan Crawford). Using his feet in lieu of arms, Alonzo fires bullets and hurls knives at the moving target against which Nanon is standing. On hand to assist with placing the weapons between Alonzo's feet is the dwarf Cojo, dressed as the Devil. The act is a great success and is followed by another of the circus's highlights: Malbar the Mighty (Norman Kerry), who performs incredible feats of strength.

Malbar, it transpires, is in love with Nanon, a fact that doesn't sit well with Alonzo, who harbours his own infatuation for the young woman. Nanon tries to reassure Alonzo that he has nothing to worry about - brute strength just doesn't interest her - but her eyes tell a different story: she is clearly attracted to the strongman despite her claim that she has had enough of being 'pawed' by men, whom she regards as 'beasts'. Alonzo offers his sympathies - "Always fear them," he tells her. "Always hate them." - while in secret confessing to Cojo that he intends to have Nanon all to himself. It might be easier if Malbar were the kind of brutish male that Nanon professes to hate, but in reality he is a thoroughly decent chap, and Alonzo knows it. Declaring his love, Malbar offers Nanon hands to caress her and strength to protect her; but, drawn to him though she is, she still flinches from his touch. 

The Monster (1925)

Directed by Roland West
Starring: Lon Chaney
             Johnny Arthur
             Gertrude Olmstead
Run time: 86 mins
Studio: MGM
Black & White

Picture the scene: It is a dark and stormy night. Betty and Amos, a young, carefree couple have just left a party together and are driving through the woods in Amos's car. An accident forces them off the road and into a ditch. Owing to the relentless downpour and the fact that the car is wrecked, they are forced to take shelter in the only building for miles around - an old dark house whose lights they have spied through the trees...

This could be a scene from any number of horror films; but there had to be a first time, and The Monster is probably it. Of course, like many horror films of the '20s and '30s, The Monster was based on a successful stage play, so this particular plot device may already have been familiar to its audience. Even so, The Monster is notable for being the first to present, if not necessarily originate, a number of elements that would later become some of the most recognised conventions (oh ok, cliches!) of the genre.

The Monster is a horror comedy, one of several that followed in the wake of D.W.Griffith's haunted-house spoof One Exciting Night (1922); but the haunted-house elements in The Monster are taken to a much more surreal level than in Griffith’s film, and they feel more authentic, for all that they remain non-supernatural. It’s also the first horror film to present us with a particular kind of Mad Doctor in the character of Dr Ziska (Chaney).  Of course, Doctors Caligari and Jekyll were mad as well (or, at the very least, misguided), but Ziska belongs to a different class of Mad Doctor all together – that of the raving, white-coated variety: a deranged scientist who conducts his evil experiments in a laboratory that looks more like a torture chamber, and whose cinematic descendents will one day include Henry Frankenstein, Herbert West, and, yes, Dr Frank N. Furter.

The story begins, however, with a variation on the scene described above. The wealthy Farmer Bowman is driving his car through a lonely nocturnal wood.  Lurking in the trees up ahead is a “human monster”, a hunched and caped figure with a corpse-like complexion, who lowers a huge camouflaged mirror down onto the road so as to confuse the approaching motorist into believing that he is about he collide with another car. It’s an unwieldy but effective device, and Farmer Bowman does indeed swerve to avoid hitting his reflection, sending his car crashing into a ditch.  At this point another figure emerges from the ground, like some precursor to the zombies that would claw their way out of their graves decades later, and the good farmer is snatched away. It’s a great opening scene that moves at a rollicking pace and sets the tone for the rest of the film.

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Directed by Rupert Julian

Starring: Lon Chaney

              Mary Philbin

              Norman Kerry

Running time: 94 mins

Studio: Universal

Black & White

The Phantom of the Opera was a troubled production. Cast and crew clashed with its director, Rupert Julian, who walked off the project after a disastrous preview . The film's producer, Carl Laemmle, was forced to reshoot large chunks of the movie. (Even Lon Chaney found himself having re-direct some of his own scenes.) The result is a visually impressive but frustratingly uneven film. Nevertheless, it’s ultimate success made Universal Studios sit up and and take notice of horror. The rest, as they say, is history.

Chaney's performance as the horribly disfigured Erik - the Phantom of the title - is of course at the heart of this film, but the first thing to grab our attention is the spectacular Paris Opera House set (apparently parts of the set still exist at Universal Studios) and it's clear from the start that a great deal of attention and money was lavished on this production. The Opera is under new management and the new season has opened with an extravagant version of Gounod's Faust. As the new executives celebrate in their office, they are warned to beware of the Phantom, a mysterious masked stranger who has reserved Box 5 for his exclusive use. So far, so good.

Rumours are rife backstage that the Phantom has returned and it is during the scenes involving the over-excited stage hands and ballerinas that things start to look less promising. We are told that the Phantom has eyes "like holes in a grinning skull" and that his skin is like "leprous parchment...drawn tight over protruding bones." Yet the scenes are played for laughs. When one of the ballerinas anounces that she thinks she's seen the Phantom emerging from a secret panel, they all run around like hyperactive children in a fairground haunted house. Coming so early on in the proceedings, these scenes give the unfortunate impression that the film you're about to watch isn't to be taken too seriously. (On the other hand, it's quite possible that the intention was to lull the original audience into a false sense of security.)