White Tiger

The name of director Tod Browning is often associated with noir. His White Tiger (1923) is available on DVD in an extremely worn but quite sharp print that seems to be missing only the end title. The evil but charismatic villain, engagingly played by Wallace Beery, joins with his supposed daughter, Priscilla Dean (not exactly over-flatteringly costumed or photographed), and hero, Raymond Griffith (playing a dramatic role here with his usual comedic skill), in robbing the rich by diverting their attention with a "mechanical" chess player. As in Browning's later Unholy Three (1925), the three crooks escape to the hills but fall out. The editing in this latter section tends to be a bit choppy, but evidently this was always the case. After completion, Universal took the editing out of Browning's hands and also saw to it that many of the inter-titles were re-written. Nonetheless, White Tiger remains a fascinating noir excursion that will delight Browning fans, despite its many unbelievable plot twists and machinations.

After their underworld father is shot down, children Raymond Griffith (as Roy Donovan) and Priscilla Dean (as Sylvia Donovan) are brought up believing each other is dead; they are separated, and raised, by other criminals. Wallace Beery (as Bill Hawkes), the "Stool Pidgeon" who played a part in her father's death, raises Ms. Dean to be an accomplished London pickpocket. Meanwhile, enterprising Mr. Griffith scams pawns as "The Mechanical Chess-player". Mr. Beery, who calls himself "Count Donelli" invites Griffith to join himself and Dean. Soon, the unholy trio travel to New York's Fifth Avenue; there, they plan their biggest heist.

Tod Browning's "White Tiger" is entertainingly performed, and directed. Later in the running time, Matt Moore (as Richard Longworth) makes the troupe a fine acting quartet. The story situation requires too great a suspension of disbelief, however. You'll may wonder why Griffith and Dean don't dope things out sooner (just for starters). The "White Tiger" referred to in the title is, by the way, the criminal element that lives in the heart of the unholy criminal: "Fawning and hating the strong, ready to ravage the weak, faithless…suspicious…cruel and savage, fearing no God…trusting no man…that's White Tiger in the heart of the crook!"

This film's title (a contrived reference to the criminal instinct) is so arbitrary, I suspect that someone in Universal's front office ordered Tod Browning to make a movie called 'White Tiger' but didn't care about its actual content.

SPOILERS COMING. We get several of the usual Tod Browning elements here: a grotesque scam, urban criminals who hide out in the woods, stolen jewels concealed in an unprepossessing object, and the convenient regeneration of a lifelong criminal.

The story opens in a London slum, resembling the one in 'The Blackbird', but with a prologue structurally similar to the one in 'West of Zanzibar'. Roy and Sylvia Donovan are the young children of a criminal who has just been shopped to Scotland Yard by his henchman Hawkes (Wallace Beery). As the peelers burst in, Hawkes flees with little Sylvia, leaving boy Roy to his own devices as the children's father is killed.

Fade in fifteen years later at 'a famous wax musee (sic) in London' (I wonder which one). The grown-up Roy (played by Raymond Griffith) is now working inside a mechanical chess-playing device, clearly inspired by the (equally fraudulent) automaton which Johann Nepomuk Maelzel exhibited in Europe and America in the 1830s, and which was rumbled in an 1836 essay by Edgar Allan Poe (whom Raymond Griffith resembled facially). Working a scam in the same layout is Sylvia (Priscilla Dean), whom Hawkes has raised as a pickpocket. (In the film's main story following the prologue, Beery is made 15 years older with an impressive makeup job, but his character has not gained any weight.)

Annoyingly and contrivedly, the Donovan siblings have each believed the other to be killed in the police raid. Now they meet -- the audience are aware of their relationship -- yet fail to recognise each other, although Roy feels a 'brotherly' affection for this woman.

The whole gang -- Griffith, Dean, Beery, the mechanical chess-player, Uncle Tom Cobley and all -- hightail it to a very unconvincing New York City. Roy seems to recognise Hawkes as the man who shopped his father, but bides his time. After they pull their big heist, they scarper for a convenient cabin in the woods like the crooks in 'The Unholy Three'. The three lead characters in this movie -- all played by American actors -- are lower-class Londoners who pass themselves off in New York as Italian nobility. It's fortunate that this is a silent movie, so that we're spared what surely would have been ludicrous attempts at double-decker accents. (And anyway, Raymond Griffith had a throat ailment which would end his acting career in talking pictures.) It's deeply annoying that the characters played by Dean and Griffith spend so much time together, in such close quarters, before realising they're brother and sister.

SPOILERS NOW. As this is a Tod Browning film, it's no surprise that a man and woman who are lifelong criminals -- Griffith and Dean, this time round -- experience a total and sincere reformation, and (very contrivedly, but also as usual for Browning) they receive a full pardon from the forces of the law. As in 'The Blackbird', this film strongly implies that a well-bred patrician (in this case, Matt Moore's top-hatted stranger) is innately superior to people of plebeian birth.

I watched this Tod Browning film with a strong sense of deja vu, as so many of its elements strongly echo so many other Browning films. One point in this film's favour is that it has a bit more comedy relief than usual for Browning, including a couple of wisecracking inter-titles. I'll rate 'White Tiger' 7 out of 10, but I wouldn't recommend it as anyone's first introduction to Tod Browning's bizarre world.

I think this could have been better if there had been a lot less standing around. The premise is pretty lame. A man with two )children (he seemed awfully old) is shot by police. Wallace Beery is known as a snitch. He heads off with the little girl while the boy runs off on his own, vowing to get revenge. In the future the three principles are together again, although the children (now grown) don't recognize one another. This leads to a ludicrous jewel robbery using a chess playing robot (with a guy inside) Then we go to a hideout where the three of them are convinced that the others are up to no good. The conclusion is pretty weak. Not one of Browning's best films.

I love silent films. Some of the best pictures ever made hail from the silent era, and even setting aside the classics, such works are a critical part of our cultural heritage that deserve to be appreciated and remembered. Not all such early titles are made equally, however. The chief trouble that I have with this one is its very weak start to the narrative; the first several minutes are written so poorly, and executed so messily, that it's a struggle to even take at face value. Sadly, much the same glaring issue rears its head again at the most inopportune time, during major revelations for the characters, at about T-12 minutes, that complement those earliest beats. Thankfully the storytelling is more mindful for the majority of the length (also recovering for the very end), with a disparity that only highlights how shoddy its most deficient points are - yet still it's distinctly uneven. The plot and its development, and the scene writing, occasionally proceed with an oversimplified brusqueness that not only in some measure quashes some of the desired tactfulness and subtlety, but also strips away connective tissue such that the screenplay at times feels like a mere outline, and not a finished product. Tod Browning's esteemed career in film-making was far better than not, though not flawless, and co-writer Charles Kenyon has plentiful credits to his name, but among their contributions to cinema I'm not fully convinced that 'White tiger' was a faultless gem in anyone's crown.

Mind you, while it has problems that dampen one's first and last impressions, it's hardly all bad. More than not, in fact, it's quite well done. It's in the details of the writing that the title is thusly troubled, but as the story advances, Browning and Kenyon do find their feet over time. The broad strokes of the tale are just fine, worthwhile and enjoyable despite familiar underpinnings in early cinema of crime, and people who are led into it. Meanwhile, the mechanical chess player is a novelty that helps a recognizable narrative thrust to feel a little more fresh. The production design and art direction are quite lovely, as is the costume design, and hair and makeup work. While surviving prints weren't wholly pristine before being digitally preserved, still there's sufficient quality in the image to admire the work that went into the picture from behind the scenes. And I should say in front of the camera, too, as the cast give solid performances - Matt Moore, Wallace Beery, Raymond Griffith, and especially Browning regular Priscilla Dean. It's a pleasure just to watch them all ply their trade. While the writing is imperfect, the man's direction isn't in question, and neither is the cinematography.

It feels strange to say for a silent movie, but there are times in the second half when 'White tiger' seems to lag a little bit, times when the compelling drama and excitement temporarily taper off. During such times the weaknesses in the writing again become more evident, and hearty suspension of disbelief is required to accept the tale as it presents. This is unfortunate, for when the feature is at its best it's reliably engaging and entertaining, and the strengths of everyone's contributions are apparent. Had the screenplay been tightened the end result would have been still more robust - why, if even just the early portions of the narrative weren't so thin, and specifically story beats revolving around the characters' identities and relationships, then this would have surely been elevated to another level. For all that, however, warts and all, the movie succeeds more than it doesn't. The crew's work, and the cast's, pair with technical craft to bolster the sturdier aspects of the writing, mostly outweighing the deficiencies. All things considered this might not be a must-see, and it won't do anything to change the minds of anyone who has a hard time engaging with early cinema. When all is said and done, however, 'White tiger' remains a classic, enjoyable early feature that's worth exploring, just so long as one is willing to abide its imperfections.