November Star of the Month – Lon Chaney

[Daveismyhero]

Hello all,

As per another member's suggestion, the November Star of the month is Lon Chaney.

Like many people on this site, I was introduced to Lon Chaney through The Phantom of the Opera (1925). I have The Unholy Three and The Monster sitting on my DVR, and I'm hoping to watch those before the end of the month, so I can contribute more.

I should probably look into the tale of London After Midnight, which is on the holy grail list of lost films.

What are some of your favorite Lon Chaney films, or lesser-known treasures?

Please share your favorite quotes, tidbits, clips or anything else you think we would enjoy. As always, thank you for participating!

Dave

[telical]

I love Lon Chaney. I think he's a unique actor. He brings a lot of psychological reflection to whatever roles he does. It would have been wonderful to see his evolution as an actor, but so many of his early films are lost. I think having two deaf parents must have been the forge upon which his gifts where developed. He stands in a unique place, not aiming to play off his looks like many actors have to do, but instead of the sheer force of what the characters he portrays are all about.

[maliejandra]

The first Lon Chaney movie I ever saw was The Unknown (because I'm a big Joan Crawford fan), and I was instantly a fan. He's a genius actor. I also really love Laugh, Clown, Laugh. The Monster is a great one too. I'd say you can't go wrong with his later films.

[R Michael Pyle]

Chaney, Sr. is, along with Fairbanks, Sr., my favorite silent actor. The film that first grabbed me was "The Unknown" (1927). I also watched it to see a young Joan Crawford. It was Chaney, though, that made the impression. But the film that has always drawn me in most is "The Penalty" (1920), a nearly Biblical tale of revenge. I have 35 of his films on DVD (some are only fragments, such as what remains of "Riddle Gawne" or the truncated "The Light of Faith"). Always looking for more.

Among my favorites are:
1) "The Penalty" (1920) (Had there been Academy Awards, Chaney should have won)
2) "The Unknown" (1927)
3) "The Wicked Darling" (1919)
4) "Victory" (1919) I'm also a Jack Holt nut
5) "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1923)
6) "Ace of Hearts" (1921)
7) "Phantom of the Opera" (1925)
"Laugh, Clown, Laugh" (1928)
9) "West of Zanzibar" (1928)
10) "Shadows" (1922) I think this is Chaney's finest performance; not the best film, just a great performance

[Big Silent Fan]

In my opinion, the reconstruction effort made for London After Midnight certainly deserves a serious look at this 'lost film'. It's an opportunity to see and understand fully what this film was really about. The pristine still images all come to life as the camera carefully moves over them just as they would have when filming on the set. In fact, everything is set in motion except of course for the actors, who must remain frozen in time when all of those stills were taken. All the facial emotions are shown. The music score is appropriate too.
It's worth the time to consider what it must have been like, being on the set, making a film when there were so many (both still and movie) cameras being used in addition to careful lighting everywhere. It must have seemed like so many paparazzi in the room.

In my opinion, it's an accurate retelling of this lost film, with images that certainly are more clear than in the unrestored film...if it existed. In my opinion, it is no longer lost.

[greta de groat]

My best friend and i were horror movie fans in high school, and managed to see a couple Chaney films on TV in those pre-video days when my dad still had to drive us to public showings. The first time we saw him on the big screen was a memorable experience. It was at the PFA, a double bill of The Unknown and Lonesome, both in prints with French-only intertitles (this was the print that Guy Maddin translated at the SFSFF a few years back, he must have first seen it about when i did). They recruited some French language student for on-the-spot translation, and you could almost hear her jaw dropping lower and lower during the course of the film. Guess nobody let her know what she was in for. That's still one of my favorite completely demented films.

greta

[s.w.a.c.]

I'll also put in a vote for one of his most "normal" films, as the gruff drill sergeant in Tell It to the Marines (1926) putting up with the guff of wisecracking recruit William Haines. Highly entertaining action-adventure, presumably creating the template for every gruff drill sergeant from Jack Webb to Warren Oates for years to come.

It's the second Chaney/Haines teaming, after 1925's The Tower of Lies, which I believe is a lost film. There's some info about it in the Haines biography Wisecracker, where although they didn't exactly become friends, Haines took note of Chaney's professionalism and dedication to his craft and tried to step up his performance to some degree.

Also, I'd love to see it to find out why Chaney wears this wizard get-up.

[Dave Pitts]

Chaney enthralls me -- who is into the silents and doesn't grab his films as an entree into the unique pleasures of the era? He is an actor who attracts a younger audience -- like Keaton does for silent comedy. Millennials who might not respond to Pickford, Gish, or Barthelmess are gobsmacked by Chaney's utter originality. He would have excelled in any decade of film, and after his final seven years with MGM, they must have anticipated him as a triple threat in sound; he could've done thrillers, action pictures, and gangster films. One would hope that Thalberg would've also found straight dramatic roles for him.
I've seen 39 of his films, some of course in the fragments or odd reels that exist on some of the titles. He reminds me a lot of Bogart, in that some of his signature roles allow him to mix a combination of emotions -- in the same scene, he can be wounded, cynical, and menacing. There's a scene in one of his films where he's sitting alone at a table in a crummy bar, brooding, and he looks like Bogart sitting in Rick's in Casablanca. (I tried to find that shot yesterday in The Shock and The Blackbird, and found similar shots but not the moody shot I remembered -- I think it's in another of his underworld movies.) In Tell It to the Marines, which was major box office in '26, he reminds me of Wallace Beery. I don't wish to compare him to any other actors, because the main quality to his work was its splendid freshness and authority. One of the great faces -- all 1,000 of 'em.

[s.w.a.c.]

Darn it, set my DVR to record the 1913 Lois Weber film Suspense, which is supposed to have Chaney in small role, one of his earliest, on TCM, and wound up with Where Are My Children? (which I've already seen) instead. Did anybody else see it?

[telical]

Darn it, set my DVR to record the 1913 Lois Weber film Suspense, which is supposed to have Chaney in small role, one of his earliest, on TCM, and wound up with Where Are My Children? (which I've already seen) instead. Did anybody else see it?

There is this copy:

[Donald Binks]

I first came across Lon Chaney by way of "Man of a Thousand Faces" with James Cagney as the star in this biographical drama. A number of the famous scenes from Chaney's silent pictures were re-enacted which whetted my appetite to see the original.

It was a few years later that I had the opportunity to see "The Phantom of the Opera" in a special late-night screening at a suburban cinema which had a Wurlitzer organ installed and who were presenting a season featuring American organist Lyn Larson. He was a showman of the old style and at the unmasking scene in the film, a green spotlight went on him as he suddenly turned around wearing the same outfit as Mr. Chaney in the film. The screams were deafening.

I was impressed with the film so much that I managed to order my own copy on 8mm to which I then added a magnetic sound stripe and after purchasing a number of LP gramophone records, added my own version of an orchestral score.

Back in the late 1960's and early 1970's it was a rare event indeed for one to actually see a silent picture - particularly a drama and so it wasn't until the dawn of the "video age" until I could come across others of Mr. Chaney's repertoire, at the same time learning more about the man himself.

I don't think I have seen one film in which Lon Chaney appears which could be considered a dud. He has presence in everything he did. His pantomime was meticulous and carried with it an innate ability to convey every emotion of which a human being is capable. Watching his movements was akin to choreography, they were so finely tuned. He had that rare ability to speak to his audience without using any words.

I only recently was able to watch "West of Zanzibar" and Lon Chaney was able to make me feel the heat of the place, smell the sweat and appreciate the absolute loathing that was in the soul of his character.

Chaney's amazing ability with make-up no doubt lead to his being cast in macabre roles but I think that as time went on, his prowess with talking roles would have increased in a wide variety of dramas, due to his abilities with differing voices as witnessed in "The Unholy Three". The fact that he succumbed to cancer at a relatively early age has robbed us of a chance to see a furthering of his career in talkies.

All in all, he was one of the greatest exponents of the silent screen.

[Michael F. Blake]

I became aware of Lon at age 10 when I watched MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES on TV. My dad had a part in the film and I got to stay up and watch it (it was an 11:30pm Saturday night slot). After it was over I stated I wanted a makeup case and wanted to know more about Lon.

My dad rented me a 16mm print of PHANTOM for my 14th birthday and I ran it to death over that weekend. The following birthday he rented a 16mm from Films Inc. of his only talkie, THE UNHOLY THREE for my birthday. I ran that one over and over.

In L.A., we had the Silent Movie theatre and the owner, John Hampton would run some Chaney films, mainly the early 1920s films that were in public domain. I got to see THE SHOCK, NOMADS OF THE NORTH, FLESH & BLOOD, SHADOWS, HUNCHBACK & PHANTOM there.

Then with VHS, a lot of bootleg prints of his MGM films started floating out. And now DVD.

My two all-time favorite films are WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS and TELL IT TO THE MARINES. Along with THE UNKNOWN, THE PENALTY, HE WHO GETS SLAPPED, WEST OF ZANZIBAR, THE BLACKBIRD and both versions of THE UNHOLY THREE.

Yes, I did get a makeup case and in 1978 I began a 40-year career as a makeup artist in the film & TV industry (retired this past June). All those 40 years I had a photo of Lon in my makeup case. It began a conversation with many actors & actresses, some who surprised me that they knew and admired Lon's work.

[Dave Pitts]

The post above is from Michael F. Blake, who is modest enough not to mention that he authored the standard sources on Lon Chaney: Lon Chaney, The Man Behind the Thousand Faces; A Thousand Faces; and
The Films of Lon Chaney. I have all three on my shelf and refer to them constantly. Michael, I have to ask -- since the publication of The Films of Lon Chaney, have there been more discoveries of once-lost Chaney films? What are they, and have you been able to see them? And many thanks for amassing the comprehensive historical record of Lon Chaney and his films. Your books are the definition of 'labor of love.'

[Harlett O'Dowd]

Darn it, set my DVR to record the 1913 Lois Weber film Suspense, which is supposed to have Chaney in small role, one of his earliest, on TCM, and wound up with Where Are My Children? (which I've already seen) instead. Did anybody else see it?

WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN was preceded by SUSPENSE