West of Zanzibar

Somewhere WEST OF ZANZIBAR, a crippled magician insanely plots revenge on the ivory hunter who ruined his life...

Lon Chaney dominates this fascinatingly bizarre little silent movie. More than just a ‘horror actor,' Chaney was a consummate craftsman who, here using a minimum of makeup, could sway an audience with the slightest facial twinge or glance from his haunted eyes. Completely convincing as a cripple, dragging his dead legs behind him across the floor, he becomes more a monstrous aberration than a human being.

Lionel Barrymore, Warner Baxter & lovely Mary Nolan all give excellent performances in supporting roles, but this is really Chaney's picture all the way. The fine production values , courtesy of MGM, only enhance its star's dominance of the medium.

With Tod Browning, Chaney's frequent collaborator, as director, it is fascinating to speculate how much Chaney's physical performance here later influenced Browning's vision in his masterwork, FREAKS (1932).

"West of Zanzibar" (MGM, 1928), directed by Tod Browning, is the first screen carnation to the Broadway play, "Kongo," which starred Walter Huston. In the silent production made during the dawn of sound, it stars Lon Chaney giving another fine performance, this time playing an embittered cripple out to avenge the man who had wronged him.

The story opens with Phroso (Lon Chaney), a lime-house magician who is assisted by his wife, Anna (Jacqueline Gadsdon) with his magic tricks. After she goes to her dressing room, she is confronted by Crane (Lionel Barrymore), her lover, who wants to take her with away with him to Africa, but Anna hasn't told her husband about their upcoming plans and of her intentions of leaving him. Crane advises her to get ready while he breaks the news to Phroso. After being given the shocking news, Phroso becomes upset, which finds Crane accidentally pushing Phroso over the railing where he crashes into the platform below, causing his spine to break and to become crippled for life. One year later, Phroso is seen heading for a church on a wooded platform on wheels where he is to meet Anna. By the time he gets there, Anna has died, leaving behind a little girl child. Believing the baby to be Crane's, Phroso decides to avenge himself on Crane for all the suffering he has caused by raising the child of his own choosing, and to have her suffer when the time comes. Eighteen years later, the now bald-headed Phroso, now known as "Dead Legs," is living in Africa where he occupies his time in performing magic tricks to the natives. He sends for Maizi (Mary Nolan), the child now a grown woman, and Crane, who is in Africa collecting elephant tusks and ivory, to make preparations to satisfy his long awaited revenge.

Supporting the legendary Chaney are Warner Baxter (only a year away from his Best Actor Academy Award for "In Old Arizona" in 1929) as the young doctor; Roscoe Ward as Tiny; and Curtis Nero as Bumbo, all acting as assistants to Phroso/Deadlegs.

"West of Zanzibar" was one of the 13 silent MGM movies that initially premiered in New York City on the PBS series, MOVIES, GREAT MOVIES (Original air date: WNET, Channel 13, November 1, 1973), accompanied by a new orchestral score. Currently shown on Turner Classic Movies, "West of Zanzibar" is presented with its original musical score and sound effects. If that musical score that accompanies "West of Zanzibar" sounds familiar, portions of it were used for the 1930s presentation of the TARZAN adventure series starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan. Remade by MGM in 1932 as "Kongo" starring Walter Huston and Virginia Bruce in the Chaney and Nolan roles, the sound version became longer and more of a more violent nature than the Chaney film.

"West of Zanzibar" adds to the long list of Chaney's many screen characters. As for his many faces, he presents two of them. One as a young magician with make up and dark hair, the second as a mean-faced bald-headed cripple with hate in his heart, dragging himself around by his hands with his useless legs behind him. One thing about Lon Chaney, he never ceases to amaze his audience. Although bizarre as the Chaney-Browning combination is concerned, it's worth a look. (***)

"West Of Zanzibar" is so wildly improbable that it needs some masterful acting to hold it together. That is where Lon Chaney comes in, with another of his patented acting performances. You've no doubt read other reviews on the website and gotten the gist of the story, which might sound like comedy material to some. But Chaney delivers as Phroso/"Dead Legs", cuckolded magician turned Emperor in darkest Africa. His face reflects a spectrum of emotions from anguish to amused contempt and he puts the picture over.

He is not without help, as MGM has surrounded him with a stellar cast; Warner Baxter, Lionel Barrymore and Mary Nolan make up the supporting players. In short, "West Of Zanzibar" is not one of Chaney's minor films, but another example of this splendid actor's marvelous talent, a great actor who died too soon. Although it is technically in the sound era, it is a silent picture - Chaney made only one sound film before his death.

Crippled during a confrontation with his wife's lover, Phroso, a famous English magician (Lon Chaney, Sr), vows to exact terrible revenge on wife and lover. A couple of year's later when the wife, fatally ill, returns to London with a young child, Phroso's plans are put into action. After she succumbs to her illness, Phroso emigrates to Africa with her child, where the wife's lover is an ivory trader, a vocation also undertaken by Phroso.

Now known as Dead-Legs he becomes the most feared and degenerate backcountry ivory trader west of Zanzibar. He raises his daughter, who he presumes is not his own, to be a drug-addicted prostitute. With his wife's child debased, he waits like a spider in his web for the man who cuckolded and then paralyzed him. Dark stuff, this.

It's a morbid although entertaining little tale, and Lon Chaney gives his usual top-notch performance, transitioning from the big-hearted Phroso to the crippled (in both body and sole) Dead-Legs. The movie is worth watching just for his performance. Tod Browning is in his element and delivers up a dark, creepy tale. So what that the plot twists are telegraphed from a mile away, and the portrayal of Africans is negatively stereotyped. If these shortcomings can be overlooked, this is a good example of the Browning-Chaney collaborations. Not bad for a silent film, which has a recorded soundtrack, coming as it did on the cusp of the transition to sound.

This film can be discounted as unacceptable by many modern audiences. It is filmed in black and white. It is silent and it shows African blacks in a stero-typic manner that would not be accepted today.

Saying all that, it is a must-see film for any serious student or fan of drama. Chaney gives in this film one of the most powerful and convincing acting performances of any actor in any film. Without a single spoken word he shows anger to the point of madness, sly intelligence and overwhelming remorse and sorrow.

There is no feel of "miming emotions " or "mugging for the camera" about this film. The emotions that Chaney display feel so authentic that at times this viewer feels a discomfort for intruding into the personal torment of the character.

The director has used the talents of Chaney and to a lesser extent those of the other actors to relay most of the story with minimal use of "Text Cards", which otherwise would have disrupted the flow of action.