Maurice Tourneur and Lon Chaney collaborated on several films in the late teens/early 20s, but this is the first I've had the privilege of seeing. I was not disappointed; I think it's a fine film and really has some very interesting visual aspects and performances.
Maurice Tourneur was known as a master director in the silent era, and though not many of his films survive (I would be very curious if anyone sends me a list or responds with names of films that can be found) this film bears out his reputation. The only earlier Tourneur film I've seen is the gangster film "Alias Jimmy Valentine", and in this one Tourneur shows a similar penchant for geometric compositions and heavily contrasted shadow-play, at many points actually using silhouettes to tell the story when the action becomes intense and violent. There isn't the same kind of feeling from the way he uses these techniques however as what you get from the German masters of expressionism. Tourneur is creating an effect that emphasizes not only the formal aspects of the characters' environments but also the animal-ism of the characters themselves, whose bodies are often weirdly distorted when we do see them in silhouette. At other points Tourneur uses a kind of extreme geometric contrast to evoke the natural beauty of the world and the loneliness of nature, as in the scenes showing Alma and Heyst sailing out of town, their boat proceeding to the left at a sharp angle while a bunch of rocks rises up in the opposite direction on shore and a lone fisherman holds his rod at a sharp angle on the right. This type of shot occurs at several points in the film and seems to be a trademark Tourneur style judging from the famous still photos I've seen from "Peter Pan" and "Treasure Island" (both of which are lost if I'm not mistaken).
There are some scenes in the film that I thought were incredibly graphic for the time, such as the scene where Mr. Jones pushes Pedro's brother in the fire head first, and we actually see a model of the man practically exploding in the fire. Very convincing effect, still packs some shock value because the graphic nature of the shot is so unexpected. Likewise in the later scene where Ricardo tries to kill Heyst and in the film's final moments with Pedro and Mr. Jones.
Now, the performances. Might as well start with Lon Chaney's masterful turn as Ricardo. His makeup is always convincing but I've never seen him in a Mexican makeup, and it was so well done that I wouldn't have even recognized him in the early shots where the camera isn't very close if I hadn't seen the name of his character on the cast list. I've never seen Chaney so animalistic as he is in this role. While for the most part the other characters walk around very upright with creased pants and so forth, Roberto has his pants slung low around his waist and he walks with a stoop. There's a great shot of Chaney when he comes back to Heyst's house to retrieve his precious knife (he has a very fetishistic attachment to that knife), he creeps on all fours to the edge of the window and leaps through the window without raising his frame at all, landing inside the house still crouching down like a cat. In the "flashback" scenes where he's about to kill Pedro, he dances around the man's vulnerable body with his knife like a demon. Chaney projects a menace and a kind of sordid evil that is remarkable even among his many excellent film performances.
His master, Mr. Jones, by contrast is a kind of quiet menace, a man who projects a kind of evil that's reptilian to Chaney's apelike brute. It's interesting that Jones and Chaney are both defined by their weapons. Jones relies on his gun, and when his gun stops working he basically is neutered. Chaney relies on his knife but as stated is much more personally attached to it. The knife is a somewhat more intimate weapon, even though Chaney throws it, and that suits the difference in style between the two villains. Bull Montana gives a remarkable performance also as Pedro as well, a man who's hidden his emotions from the world very successfully, by pretending to be evil while awaiting his chance for revenge.
Wallace Beery gets all of his bits in the first half of the film. His character is just as evil as Jones and Roberto but he is the type who gets others to do his dirty work for him. He is certainly cunning as he discovers a way to get revenge on Heyst while ridding himself of the loathsome lodgers. The scenes with Beery and Chaney have a crackling kind of energy, which Tourneur highlights by concluding the scene with a shot of the 2 of them cackling conspiratorially while framed in the same shot. Beery's Shoemberg strikes me as a hypocrite, a man who hides his evil while Roberto wears his lack of morals like a badge of honor.
Owen is effective as Alma, but Holt comes off a bit weak as Heyst. I guess a lot of that is just part of the role, he's quite a stick in the mud in a lot of ways.
Maurice Tourneur was known as a master director in the silent era, and though not many of his films survive (I would be very curious if anyone sends me a list or responds with names of films that can be found) this film bears out his reputation. The only earlier Tourneur film I've seen is the gangster film "Alias Jimmy Valentine", and in this one Tourneur shows a similar penchant for geometric compositions and heavily contrasted shadow-play, at many points actually using silhouettes to tell the story when the action becomes intense and violent. There isn't the same kind of feeling from the way he uses these techniques however as what you get from the German masters of expressionism. Tourneur is creating an effect that emphasizes not only the formal aspects of the characters' environments but also the animal-ism of the characters themselves, whose bodies are often weirdly distorted when we do see them in silhouette. At other points Tourneur uses a kind of extreme geometric contrast to evoke the natural beauty of the world and the loneliness of nature, as in the scenes showing Alma and Heyst sailing out of town, their boat proceeding to the left at a sharp angle while a bunch of rocks rises up in the opposite direction on shore and a lone fisherman holds his rod at a sharp angle on the right. This type of shot occurs at several points in the film and seems to be a trademark Tourneur style judging from the famous still photos I've seen from "Peter Pan" and "Treasure Island" (both of which are lost if I'm not mistaken).
There are some scenes in the film that I thought were incredibly graphic for the time, such as the scene where Mr. Jones pushes Pedro's brother in the fire head first, and we actually see a model of the man practically exploding in the fire. Very convincing effect, still packs some shock value because the graphic nature of the shot is so unexpected. Likewise in the later scene where Ricardo tries to kill Heyst and in the film's final moments with Pedro and Mr. Jones.
Now, the performances. Might as well start with Lon Chaney's masterful turn as Ricardo. His makeup is always convincing but I've never seen him in a Mexican makeup, and it was so well done that I wouldn't have even recognized him in the early shots where the camera isn't very close if I hadn't seen the name of his character on the cast list. I've never seen Chaney so animalistic as he is in this role. While for the most part the other characters walk around very upright with creased pants and so forth, Roberto has his pants slung low around his waist and he walks with a stoop. There's a great shot of Chaney when he comes back to Heyst's house to retrieve his precious knife (he has a very fetishistic attachment to that knife), he creeps on all fours to the edge of the window and leaps through the window without raising his frame at all, landing inside the house still crouching down like a cat. In the "flashback" scenes where he's about to kill Pedro, he dances around the man's vulnerable body with his knife like a demon. Chaney projects a menace and a kind of sordid evil that is remarkable even among his many excellent film performances.
His master, Mr. Jones, by contrast is a kind of quiet menace, a man who projects a kind of evil that's reptilian to Chaney's apelike brute. It's interesting that Jones and Chaney are both defined by their weapons. Jones relies on his gun, and when his gun stops working he basically is neutered. Chaney relies on his knife but as stated is much more personally attached to it. The knife is a somewhat more intimate weapon, even though Chaney throws it, and that suits the difference in style between the two villains. Bull Montana gives a remarkable performance also as Pedro as well, a man who's hidden his emotions from the world very successfully, by pretending to be evil while awaiting his chance for revenge.
Wallace Beery gets all of his bits in the first half of the film. His character is just as evil as Jones and Roberto but he is the type who gets others to do his dirty work for him. He is certainly cunning as he discovers a way to get revenge on Heyst while ridding himself of the loathsome lodgers. The scenes with Beery and Chaney have a crackling kind of energy, which Tourneur highlights by concluding the scene with a shot of the 2 of them cackling conspiratorially while framed in the same shot. Beery's Shoemberg strikes me as a hypocrite, a man who hides his evil while Roberto wears his lack of morals like a badge of honor.
Owen is effective as Alma, but Holt comes off a bit weak as Heyst. I guess a lot of that is just part of the role, he's quite a stick in the mud in a lot of ways.