By Hank Reineke
The working title of the Universal-Jewel silent
six-reeler The Trap (1922) was Wolf Breed – for reasons that will soon
become apparent. Lon Chaney’s feature
role casting was reported during the first week of September 1921, the film
reportedly to be based on a scenario by Lucien Hubbard. The film was apparently
still in production during late September/early October of 1921. Newspapers were reporting that immediately following
Chaney’s completion of Wolf Breed, the
actor “will appear in The Octave of
Claudius for Goldwyn.” That film would in fact be made, but released as The Blind Bargain (1922), directed by
Wallace Worsley - who would later helm Chaney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Along with London after Midnight
(1927), The Blind Bargain is
inarguably the most sought after of the actor’s lost films.
The
Trap,
by any measure, is a more modest effort than any of the aforementioned trio of
films. The photoplay features Lon Chaney
as Gaspard the Good. His character is so
named as he is a kind and gentle soul. He’s a simple-living, always smiling, bubbly effervescent personality - a
man of good-standing in the small idyllic French Canadian mountain village of
Grand Bellaire. But Gaspard’s usual pleasant
demeanor will soon sour. Returning to
the village from a recent trip, Gaspard discovers that he has not only lost his
girlfriend Thalie (Dagmar Godowsky) to a seemingly well-to-do carpetbagger
named Benson (Alan Hale), but also to his unregistered claim to his pappy’s
hyacinth gemstone mine. Gaspard tries his best to sublimate his personal sorrows,
one title card noting while “The morning sun was no more radiant,” the broken-spirited
Gaspard managed to hold “no malice” within his heart. For a time, anyway.
But things change in the intervening span of seven – yes,
seven – years. The cad Benson has suffered several reversals
of fortunes, beginning with a calamitous cave-in dooming his mining
operation. We also learn Benson has not
been a particularly loving husband to sweet Thalie who we watch as she succumbs
to a fatal illness. Her husband coldly
dismisses his wife’s deathbed lethargy to “laziness.” Sitting astride Thalie’s bedside is her grieving
five-year old son with Benson, “The Boy” (Stanley Goethals). Gaspard too has suffered a shocking reversal
– a shift in personality as the last few years events have left him bitter. Though Benson’s recent streak of bad breaks
should have brought Gaspard a measure of satisfying yin and yang closure, it’s
simply wasn’t enough to erase the sting of his personal anguishes.
So seeking a more punishing revenge on Benson, Gaspard
convinces a local tavern tough that the carpetbagger has been saying awful
things about him. The enraged brute
attempts to assail Benson who unexpectedly defends himself with a pistol shot –
a crime for which he is sentenced to the gallows. But this sentence is later commuted to a
prison sentence when the brute survives the shooting. In the interim, and as per Thalie’s deathbed
wish, Gaspard has taken custody of her son - for whom the bitter ex-lover intends
to administer a misplaced vengeance. But
in short time the innocent “wee waif” reawakens the good in Gaspard’s heart who
becomes a doting model foster parent to the child. But when Gaspard is informed that Benson has
been released from prison with plans to collect his biological son, a
distraught Gaspard - fearful of losing the boy - sets up a diabolical snare involving
a trap door and a starving wolf lying in wait.
It’s a melodrama for sure. In its review of May 20, 1922, Billboard suggested while the storyline
of The Trap was overly “trite,” the
film itself was visually appealing with “most picturesque locations” and
“photography showing some rare and perfect gems of outdoor beauty.” (The film was actually photographed not in
the Canadian wilderness but in the tranquil and majestic canyons of Yosemite
National Park). Chaney’s “remarkable
impersonation” of the French-Canadian Gaspard was noteworthy, even though the
review concedes “the vehicle is not sufficiently strong to do justice to the
ability of the star.” This contrasts
with the view of Variety’s critic who
thought director Robert Thornby’s excessive use of full-frame close-ups of
Chaney – which allowed a bit too much melodramatic over-emoting on the actor’s
part – was nothing if not “tiresome.” Personally,
I disagree with this assessment. Though
there are no shortage of such close-ups, Chaney’s facial expressions on screen enable
the actor to convey emotions of sorrow, joy, malice and anger in a visual manner
that no title card could ever convey as successfully.
That said, The Trap
was an idiosyncratic picture in some sense, and certainly an archetype of the
tortured character roles Chaney would more famously play in the future. Many silent pictures of the day were structured
around romantic angles in their scenarios. But following Gaspard’s loss of both mine and sweetheart Thalie (the
actress being the daughter of the famed Lithuanian-American classical pianist
Leopold Godowsky), the film drops any pretension of romantic conciliation or
renewal. The movie instead focuses on
Chaney’s dark, methodically-plotted and coldly calculated plan of revenge.