Review of The Penalty (1920) by Van R — 28 May 2010

Lon Chaney?s plays a Barbary Coast criminal mastermind during the early 1900s in director Wallace Worsley?s ?The Penalty,? an outstanding crime thriller that wraps up its 93 minutes with a surprise ending. The premise alone makes this silent epic worth watching. Moreover, Chaney contrived a leather contraption that allowed him impersonate his handicapped villain without relying on hokey camera angles or trick photography. At the turn of the century, a boy in his early teens has a tragic traffic accident and an inexperienced surgeon; Dr. Ferris (Charles Clary of ?A Tale of Two Cities?) makes the wrong decision and amputates both of the boy?s legs from the knees down. An older physician informs the young doctor that amputation was not necessary. Initially, the doctors thought that they could not be overheard, but the child is able to hear them and he tells his parents that the doctors are lying about his medical condition.

?Dangerous Days? scenarist Charles Kenyon has adapted Gouverneur Morris? 1920 novel and altered the upbeat, optimistic, happy ending. The title ?The Penalty? here refers to the debt that the protagonist must pay for being such a heinous individual. Kenyon, Worsley, and Chaney make sure that Blizzard behaves like a cruel man. At one point, he roughs up one of his female employees when he finds her ability to make a hat less than satisfactory and reprimands her in front of her peers. Incredibly, though we are never shown how he acquired his power, the boy grows up to become an evil mastermind named ?Blizzard? and he rules the Barbary Coast underworld. The Federal Police want to bust him, but Blizzard is far too sagacious for them. Eventually, the police send in an undercover operative, Rose (Ethel Grey Terry of ?Wild Bill Hickok?), to work her way into Blizzard?s good graces. The chief of the Federal Police suspects that Blizzard is up to no good, but nobody has been able to gather enough evidence against him to destroy his organization.

One way that Blizzard?s kept women can improve their chances of survival is to have an ear for music. When the crippled crime boss comes home, he prefers to sit at his piano and make music. Since he lacks the feet to push the pedals, he relies upon his kept women. Rose turns out to be the best kept woman that Blizzard has ever had and she is allowed to come and go as she pleases. Eventually, Rose discovers a concealed compartment in the fireplace. She notices a loose brick in the section of bricks in front of the fireplace and finds a trip wire in the niche. When she pulls the wire, the entire interior part of the fireplace ascends to reveal a vertical passage. A person can climb down a pair of straps connected by buckles to an underground passage that is wired for lighting and contains a surgeon?s operating suite.

Meanwhile, the evil Blizzard is planning to repay the surgeon for his inexcusable act of medical malpractice for removing his legs. The surgeon?s adult daughter, Barbara Ferris (Claire Adams of ?The Big Parade?) is trying to become an artist, but her boyfriend, Ferris's assistant Dr. Allen (Kenneth Harlan of ?Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc.?) has a low opinion of her aspirations. She wants to try her hand at one last project before she capitulates to her fiancé?s demands. Allen believes that "true women need love, a home, and children." Barbara prints a newspaper advertisement soliciting a model for her sculpture of Satan after the fall and Blizzard instructs his henchmen to turn away all comers. When he shows, Blizzard makes a believer out of the daughter and she begins to model his likeness in clay. While all this is going on, Blizzard has also orchestrated an audacious plan to loot the city of San Francisco by creating a riot in the suburbs that will draw the authorities away from the city so Blizzard?s minions can do their bidding. Blizzard?s other scheme?not quite as audacious, but just as malignant is to fool the old surgeon into cutting off the legs of his daughter?s fiance and grafting his legs onto Blizzard?s stumps.

?The Penalty? qualified as Lon Chaney?s first major motion picture and a harbinger of pictures to come. This black & white silent opus is quite hypnotic, especially when Chaney is on screen hobbling around on crutches and leather knee guards.