While the City Sleeps

Once again, Lon Chaney cast his makeup case aside and played a no-nonsense NY police detective, out to nail a murderer.

He's all business and Chaney LOOKS like an old-time detective. From the way he holds his gun to his wardrobe, it all looks like the real thing. And he even displays some great comedy touches in this film.

Look for the newly completed (April 1928) L.A. City Hall is a scene where Chaney goes over the rooftops. It is a crackerjack of a picture and Chaney is in top form!

Dan Coghlin (Lon Chaney) is a hard, tough as nails Irish American NYC cop with bad feet. Today we'd call him a detective versus a uniformed cop. He's ready to quit the force until a jewelry store robbery occurs and the store clerk is killed in the process. The suspect is Mile-Away Skeeter Carlson (Wheeler Oakman), who is so named because he always claims he was a mile away when something happened. Carlson claims he is at the scene because of his undertaking business. Coghlin sees Carlson as his "great white whale" and decides to stay on the force.

So Coghlin is sure Carlson has something to do with this murder/robbery, and so he is on his trail, even plying Carlson's cast off mistress for information. In a parallel plot, Coghlin is trying - not so successfully - to keep Myrtle Sullivan on the straight and narrow. She is the daughter of a dead friend, maybe even a fallen cop. He's known her since childhood, but now he's starting to be attracted to her and he is frightened by that feeling. Myrtle likes hanging out at the dance hall where all of the gangsters congregate and she has developed feelings for a young guy who Carlson has taken under his wing, Marty, but Carlson has the hots for Myrtle himself and needs to get Marty out of the way. And to a gangster there is only one way to get somebody out of your way. Complications ensue.

There's lots to like about this late silent gangster film. It is title card heavy since there is much cop and gangster slang getting tossed about. It's always good to see Chaney as an ordinary guy like he was in "Tell It To The Marines" with ordinary problems. Polly Moran is good as Lon Chaney's dowdy landlady who very badly wants to make him her next late husband. Anita Page is the incorrigible teen jazz baby Myrtle who isn't nearly as smart as she thinks she is.

Wheeler Oakman, as the villain is wonderfully hissable and contemptible, but I have to wonder how he managed to live this long always double-crossing associates, bumping off witnesses, and boldly taking pot shots at cops. He's been cheating death a long time at this point.

The condition of the film is watchable, but about five minutes are missing, although that doesn't render the plot incomprehensible. If the film was restored it would be a true visual treat as a look at New York City at the end of the roaring twenties with its skyscrapers and subway.

I'd say it's worth putting up with the condition of the film if you are a Lon Chaney fan.

Lon Chaney is a police plain clothes detective who is out to get criminal Wheeler Oakman while trying to keep Anita Page and Carroll Nye on the straight and narrow. The one movie where he almost gets the girl. Nice New York locale and humorous Joe Farnham titles.