I've been going to silent movies, both in Niles and San Francisco, for a couple of years now, and am really enjoying them. I haven't been reviewing the ones I see at the multiple-film festivals because it's a lot of input and because I don't feel really knowledgeable enough yet to review a lot of these movies...but the odd one or two that I see at home, sure.

We had gone to the Silent Film Festival Winter Event and one of the movies had been Tod Browning's West of Zanzibar starring Lon Chaney...sure, the plot was silly and contrived, but Chaney was AMAZING. And I had seen other Browning movies (the Unknown, also with Chaney, and Freaks, and the '31 Dracula, which was supposed to star Chaney but he was thoughtless enough to die before he could be in it) and enjoyed them very much.

So I did what any self-respecting otter would do when she gets interested in something: I found a book about Tod Browning's life (Dark Carnival was the title) and read it. And got even more interested in the Browning/Chaney collaboration.

Browning made ten movies with Chaney, eight of which still exist. I'm going to work my way through them, and you'll see the results here over time.

So then, it was about a week after the Winter Event. I was reading the book about Browning, and GATADD had given Mr. Otter a late birthday present, a movie he had wanted for years that had just come out on DVD: China Seas, with Clark Gable and Jean Harlow.

Of course he wanted to watch it that very night. And I just wasn't in the mood for it. So while he enjoyed this movie (which looked pretty good, I'll try it again later) I went onto Netflix and watched the one Chaney/Browning movie that they offer for playing on your computer (Call me old-fashioined, but I refuse to buy their expensive box that lets you watch stuff directly from them.) which was this one.

Now, I didn't expect much; reviews of this are pretty bad. Chaney plays not only the evil gangster trying to frame the girl's father, but also the Chinese servant of the good guy's Chinese friend. Hm.

So how was it? not great. Certainly none of the wild outrageousness that Browning's movies would have in a few years; The Unknown and West of Zanzibar are so unbelieveably over the top they are just a joy to watch, and I truly think that nobody but Chaney could have pulled them off. In this, he's very good, not so much as the Chinese servant, which is almost cringingly stereotypical (not nearly as bad as Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's, though). But he's very very good, even under too much makeup, as the evil crime boss Black Mike.

Also, evidently one reel of this, the most exciting, was damaged, so the scenes where everyone is chasing each other, shooting like crazy, are very hard to see, unfortunately.

Still. Chaney is good, the plot is not bad, and it's early Tod Browning. Worth seeing.