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Tod Browning, MGM, 1928, from the play Kongo. Lon Chaney is Phroso, a magician lamed by a rival, who sets up as Dead-Legs in an African trading post and raises the rival’s daughter (Mary Nolan) for a revenge he has already misread. Lionel Barrymore is the other man. Seventy minutes, synchronized score. Chaney’s crawl is another physical contract. The jungle is the lot and the usual extras. Browning and Chaney’s cruelty is domestic this time: a house, a lie about a mother, a man waiting too long. The last reel corrects the facts.
In two programmes
Phroso, lamed by a rival, drags himself through a swamp for a revenge that takes eighteen years and is aimed at the wrong person. Chaney does the whole picture below waist height. The jungle is the lot; the cruelty is a house. When the facts finally come out, they are worse than the revenge.
Lon Chaney: The Man of a Thousand Faces
Dead-Legs in an African trading post, dragging himself through a swamp for eighteen years toward a revenge he has misread. Chaney below waist height for the whole picture. The jungle is the lot. The cruelty is a house and a lie about a mother. When the facts arrive, they are worse.
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