By Doug Gerbino
The Warner Archive Collection released six rare Lon Chaney, Sr. films on October 26 -- five silents and one talkie (his one and only talkie). The films are He Who Gets Slapped (1924); The Monster and The Unholy Three (both 1925); Mr. Wu and Mockery (both 1927); and The Unholy 3 (1930), the sound remake of the 1925 film with a numerical title and a different ending. Lon Chaney, Sr. was a fascinating actor. It's a shame that he is pigeon-holed as a horror star. This is due to the over-availability of two of his most famous films: Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and Phantom of the Opera (1925/29). The fact that these two films are public domain has made them the most widely available of his movies. Within recent years, Warner Home Video has been releasing some of Chaney's MGM films. In 2003, Warner Home Video and TCM released The Lon Chaney Collection, which contained three films: The Aces of Hearts, Laugh, Clown, Laugh and The Unknown. Great stuff, but it left you wanting more.
Now WHV, through its Warner Archive Collection has just released six Chaney rarities on a burn-to-order basis. These films, while not digitally remastered, look fine considering their age -- as fine as when TCM shows them on their network. In chronological order we start with 1924's He Who Gets Slappe, which co-stars Norma Shearer and John Gilbert and holds the distinction of being the very first film completely made and released by the newly formed studio, MGM. Chaney plays a mad doctor in the "comedy" film, The Monster where he wears surprisingly little make-up (and looks surprisingly like Boris Karloff, one of his successors in the horror genre of the following decade). The 1925 silent version of The Unholy Three is a classic directed by Tod Browning, with whom Chaney had a most productive, if strangely symbiotic relationship. His co-stars are Mae Busch (before she became "ever popular" playing opposite Laurel & Hardy) and Victor McLaglen. Chaney plays two Asian characters in Mr. Wu a lurid tale of paternal revenge. Ironically, we do have Anna Mae Wong in the cast, but Chaney's daughter is played by Renee Adoree! Mockery is set during the Russian revolution of 1918. Chaney plays a Russian peasant who risks his life to help a Russian Countess (Barbara Bedford) escape to safety. She repays Chaney by making him a servant in her household. Here, she forgets who he is, while remembering that she loves Ricardo Cortez and carrying on with him while Chaney suffers (which no one did better than Lon Chaney, Sr. during the silent era).
Lastly we come to The Unholy 3, the 1930 talkie remake of the 1925 silent The Unholy Three (notice the title change). At MGM, two stars held out in making their talkie debuts. One was Greta Garbo, and the other was Lon Chaney, Sr. MGM was a little worried about Garbo and her accent. They had nothing to worry about with Chaney and this frustrating film proves it -- frustrating in that we get a glimpse of what might have been when hearing his wonderful voice. Chaney died seven weeks after the film was released, thus making it the only talkie he ever did. Chaney -- the man of a thousand voices as well as a thousand faces...ah, well. How eerily ironic at the film's end to see a friend give Chaney a carton of cigarettes, now knowing that he died of throat cancer at the age of 47 less than two months later.
As of this writing, these films are being offered on the Warner Home Video website on a mail-order basis under the Warner Archives Collection. Warner Archives'' DVDs are only for sale in the United States; you can get all six films for $71.82, but they are limiting the package to one per customer. I guess WHV has noticed all the folks who had been ordering up a storm and reselling internationally on eBay and Amazon.com. When you got a good thing people want it, and if you like the films of one of the greatest cinema actors of the 1920s, you will want these Lon Chaneyfilms. Get your "one-per-customer" package today.
Click here to visit the Warner Archives web site