West of Zanzibar (1928)

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

In London, dapper magician Lon Chaney (as Phroso) entertains audiences by turning a skeleton into beautiful Jacqueline Gadsdon (as Anna), his wife and partner. But she is planning to run away with lover Lionel Barrymore (as Crane), an African ivory merchant. He gives Mr. Chaney the bad news and their confrontation leads to Chaney being tossed over a balcony. Consequently, Chaney loses the use of his legs. He begins a heartless revenge after obtaining his quickly expired wife's "love child" and taking her to Africa...Eighteen years later, "West of Zanzibar", Chaney (now known as "Dead-Legs") retrieves pretty blonde Mary Nolan (as Maizie) from her childhood as an alcoholic prostitute. This is how Chaney wants to present Ms. Nolan to her father, Mr. Barrymore. While staying with Chaney, Nolan arouses Warner Baxter (as Doc), an addicted physician helping Chaney cope with his disability. Chaney uses his magician background to dupe superstitious natives. Their propensity to eat and burn people could come back to bite or burn him...Perverse and predictable, this lurid melodrama contains enough Browning/Chaney dramatics to recommend, although the story is far from their best. There would be only one more collaboration, "Where East Is East" (1929), due to Chaney's untimely death. "West of Zanzibar" is one of the pictures the legendary filmmaking team might have re-made with sound. The short running time hints story elements were dropped at some stage; a longer film might have improved the pacing, and made the big scenes more surprising.****** West of Zanzibar (11/24/28) Tod Browning ~ Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore, Mary Nolan, Warner Baxter

The opening sequences of Lon Chaney as the magician foreshadow the dark atmospheres that director Tod Browning would later create for Freaks and Mark of the Vampire. Excellent photography and an astonishing physical performance that was the hallmark of Chaney's work. I remember this film being shown on Chicago's PBS outlet WTTW-TV during the 1970s. It was tinted in certain scenes and featured a new score that was fresh, yet not too modern. A master from this television showing has to exist somewhere.Why this fantastic film is not more readily available is a mystery. It deserves to be seen on DVD or Turner Classic Movies.

In one of his last silent films, Lon Chaney plays a magician who went into a kind of exile in the Belgian Congo after a fight with a man who stole his wife left him a cripple. He's now known as 'Deadlegs' and he's used his mastery of prestidigitation to make himself the local kingpin in his neck of the jungle. But even he has to obey certain native customs.He's an embittered and twisted man who has worked out a most carefully engineered scheme involving his late wife's daughter. The man who did steal his wife, Lionel Barrymore is now also in Africa. He contrives to bring the two of them together and both kill and degrade them at the same time at the hands of the cannibals he lives with.Even with this Victorian plot and given the racism of the times, in Victorian Great Britain they would not have had cannibals in Africa because there were no cannibals in Africa. But what did Americans know about Africa?Still Chaney gives a compelling performance and the role calls for the make up and the contortion that he was known for. In fact in James Cagney's film biography of Chaney there are small portraits of Chaney's various screen roles and West of Zanzibar is one of them. Also look for a good performance by Warner Baxter as the alcoholic doctor who Chaney keeps on a kind of retainer.It's not a great film, far from it, but it is a fascinating look at the life and art of Lon Chaney.

Despite the flaws to be expected in a silent film that rushes the story forward by compressing time and events and bridging the gap with a few written words of dialog, WEST OF ZANZIBAR remains another interesting, weird and chilling entry in the cycle of LON CHANEY's horror films.As to be expected, Chaney once again suffers for his art. He plays a man so damaged by a fall during a struggle with LIONEL BARRYMORE, that he must spend the rest of his life as a cripple, vowing to get revenge against the man who claimed he was going to take Chaney's sweetheart to Africa. Chaney then discovers the woman dead in church (a probable suicide) with her little girl crying near her body.The scene shifts to Africa where Chaney is bent on revenge and the tale takes some really darker turns involving natives immersed in Voodoo practices, the death of ivory merchant Barrymore, and some revelations about the identity of the girl who is part of Chaney's plan to seek revenge against the man who wronged him.It's typical Tod Browning/Lon Chaney melodrama and some of it looks pretty primitive by today's standards but silent film lovers will undoubtedly put this one near the top of their list as a film great.Chaney reveals himself to be a great actor, capable of instilling fear and hatred in his expression and a number of other grimaces in between. As expected, LIONEL BARRYMORE proves that even as early as silent films he was given to much blustery overacting, as is WARNER BAXTER in his drunk scene. MARY NOLAN, as the blonde beauty, seems to be smirking most of the time rather than smiling, probably to suggest the hard life she's been living as a part of Chaney's scheme--but she's effective most of the time.Well worth viewing for any Lon Chaney or Tod Browning fan.