Mockery

During his career, Lon Chaney played a lot of odd roles and a wide variety of nationalities. So, his playing a Russian peasant in "Mockery" isn't all that surprising.

The film is set during the Russian Revolution and it begins with Sergei (Chaney) looking among the dead after battle in order to find some food. While doing this, he meets up with a woman who offers to give him food and pay him if he can slip her into Novokursk--a nearby city besieged by Communist forces. He agrees and this peasant is now devoted to the woman. His devotion is proved when they are captured and he is beaten. Even then, he won't betray her.

When they are rescued, the woman turns out to be a countess and her gratitude towards Sergei seems shallow and fleeting. When he confronts her about this, she begrudgingly gives him a job working as one of her servants. Not surprisingly, when another servant, Ivan, begins lecturing Sergei about the evils of the rich, Sergei is more than willing to listen. After all, he'd taken a beating to save this woman yet seemed to have little regard for him. And all the servants seem ready to join the rebellion. What's next? See the film.

This is a decent but not exactly sparkling film. Chaney is fine but the plot is confusing as to its message. Is it a rousing endorsement of the destruction of a decadent system? You get inklings of this...but the ending also seems to strongly endorse the system. Or, is it a film that extols the virtue of the nobility? Well, not really as several of the rich folks in this film are real jerk-faces! So what's it all mean? I dunno...

If you do watch this one, look for Mack Swain as a corpulent rich jerk. He is normally known for comedies--particularly films with Chaplin. So, seeing him in a serious and thankless role like this is an interesting change of pace. Also, look for a very young and very handsome Ricardo Cortez as the Captain...he sure looks different than he did in his heyday in the 1930s.

A downtrodden and slow-witted Russian peasant first saves the life of, and then fixates upon, a beautiful countess around the time of the Russian Revolution.

One of Lon Chaney's best films, yet little-seen or mentioned, probably because of him wearing so much less make-up than in his more celebrated roles like The Hunchback of Notre Dame or Phantom of The Opera. It doesn't address the politics or historical events of the revolution in any detail, dwelling as it does on personal power dynamics instead, but it's a thoroughly involving tale, mostly due to the detail of the two leads, Chaney and the delicately expressive Barbara Bedford.

It strikes me again how brutal and cruel some of the great creations of the silent era were, dealing in the dread realities of life the same way as the early blues songs, the ancient folk ballads and original fairy tales. A lot of these rough edges were sanded off to make a more palatable fantasy product for the masses as sound came in, but films like this, The Man Who Laughs, The Last Command and even Chaplin comedies like The Kid and City Lights have a gut-punching pathos in the face of ordinary human horror that it's hard to find anywhere today.

7.1/10.

In this silent Lon Chaney film, he once again plays a non-traditional role. This time he is a dull-witted peasant, Sergei, during a revolution. He survives by taking food off dead bodies on the battlefield. While at this, he is discovered by a beautiful woman, who enlists his aid in trying to escape. He is primarily responsible for getting her out of a potentially deadly situation. What he doesn't realize is that she is a countess, living the high life, ruling the servants. She never intended any sort of relationship, obviously. He doesn't see it this way. So it is hopeless. He then gets enlisted by a cook, who works in the mansion. He uses Sergei to manipulate his situation, wanting to get his hands on the countess. Sergei just doesn't get it. Chaney is fantastic. His amazing facial expressions and his interpretation of the role are superb.

Not to go into Tim Robbins mode from The Player, but think of this film as Downstairs (1932) meets He Who Gets Slapped (1924) meets The Last Command (1928). It blends class differences, the pain of humiliation, and the Russian Revolution into a bit of a mess, but it's a mess with Lon Chaney, who I always find mesmerizing. Here he plays a Russian peasant, and opposite him is beautiful Barbara Bedford, who more than keeps up with him as an aristocrat. During the civil war he protects her out in the country (how she ever managed to get in this position isn't explained), taking a whipping to conceal her identify which even he doesn't fully know. She's rescued and they're brought to her manor, where he expects her to live up to her promise to be his friend forever, but she simply offers him a servant's job and makes it clear that he's of a different class. In addition to being disillusioned, he endures the pain of being yelled at and called an idiot by the older lady of the house.

I wish I could say this film is some grand metaphor for the Revolution, with the peasant becoming woke to the hypocrisy of the ruling class and turning on them. It briefly has those overtones, when another servant tells him "You fool! You take a beating because an aristocrat promises you something? Do you think those upstairs pigs ever keep their promises to us downstairs?" The servants in the house look forward to the fall of the aristocracy, and have a little revolution of their own in the kitchen, ignoring the bell ringing for service and getting drunk. It's a situation where everyone seems repelling - the aristocracy for living off the vast wealth inequality (with the couple in this house also being war profiteers), as well as the marauding revolutionaries and peasants, who on three different occasions in the film look to rape Bedford's character. In one of the better scenes, one with real menace, it's Chaney's character who does this, and she repels him with the heel of her hand pushed up under his chin with all of her strength (which looked rather painful to Chaney).

The film could have gone to some pretty dark places or made an actual statement, but unfortunately it cops out on all fronts. There is a romantic angle (with Ricardo Cortez) which might have worked had the guy come back and killed the peasant, or vice versa, but the film instead wants both of them to be heroes, opting for a contrived and unsatisfactory ending. Despite that, I liked Chaney and Bedford enough to enjoy seeing this film, especially since it moved along pretty well over its 70-minute runtime.

During the Russian Revolution, "slow-thinking and ignorant" peasant Lon Chaney (as Sergei) promises to help beautiful waylaid countess Barbara Bedford (as Tatiana Alexandrova) travel to safety in the militarily protected city of Novokursk. In return, Ms. Bedford offers Mr. Chaney food and friendship. Before the couple are rescued, Bolsheviks whip Chaney and attempt to rape Bedford. When they are safe, Bedford gives Chaney a menial job; and, she falls in love with handsome Russian rescuer Ricardo Cortez (as Dimitri).

Oafish Chaney begins to realize Bedford never offered true friendship, as she is a member of the aristocratic class. Another of Chaney's peasant class, rotund Charles Puffy (as Ivan), encourages Chaney to attack his former companion, and her ilk. When the Revolution is won, Chaney believes, "I will be good enough for the Countess," and he hopes to "kiss her" like Captain Cortez kisses her. Fueled with liquor, Chaney decides to rape Bedford. Will his secret love for Bedford be his salvation, or damnation?

Nicely directed, in the last act, by Benjamin Christensen. An interesting earlier scene, wherein Chaney lovingly bathes Bedford's feet, can be seen as the point where Bedford is set up as Sergei's potential "Madonna"-type savior. Mr. Puffy makes a relatively good impression, neatly balancing comic with menacing. Handsome 1940s western star Johnny Mack Brown can be seen as a Russian officer; he quickly became an MGM co-star for no less than Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer.

***** Mockery (8/13/27) Benjamin Christensen ~ Lon Chaney, Barbara Bedford, Ricardo Cortez, Charles Puffy