{2jtab: Movie Review}

When it comes to enjoying a nice chilly October night – especially near Halloween’s festive date – there’s nothing else like the scares of a good silent horror film to entertain.  Saturated with mood and melodramatic with its frights, little else will do it right to get you in the spooky mood.  Wallace Worsley’s The Penalty, starring the master of the macabre Lon Chaney, might just be your best trick or treat yet.  .

Based on a novel by Gouverneur Morris, The Penalty is about a ferocious gangster named Blizzard (Chaney) and his quest for revenge.  Blizzard’s legs were mistakenly amputated at a young age by Dr. Ferris (Charles Clary). Driven insane by the social pressures of being forced to walk in a crutch, Blizzard uses his magnanimous personality to do evil with.  He wants his legs back and he will stop at nothing to get them grafted back on…even if the legs belong to someone else.

Before he reached icon status for his commanding work in The Phantom of the Opera, Chaney wowed audiences in the role of Blizzard.  Simulating amputated legs, Chaney wore an apparatus that pinned his feet as close to his back as would allow.  It was a complex system of straps his doctors warned him against wearing and, by having his knees strapped into two wooden buckets, it meant Chaney would be walking on his knees the entire duration of the shoot.  Ouch.  In fact, Chaney was in so much pain that some say the anger added to his performance as a criminal gone mad.

Co-starring Ethel Grey Terry, Claire Adams, James Mason and Kenneth Harlan, the film’s supporting cast is interesting and does much to carry the gangster picture when Chaney is not on the screen. The emotional touches from Adams and Harlan add some good moments and the steely eyes of Mason are enough to cause some to shudder.  Yet, none match the fire of Chaney’s twisted performance.  There is even an interesting and utterly disturbing master and servant relationship that develops between Terry (his piano pedal pusher always at her knees) and Chaney (always at the keys).  Strangely sexual, it’s these moments that give the film its lasting impression.

When Chaney’s twisted revenge scheme itself gets knotted up by a surprise ending, director Worsley’s secret ambition for the picture – arguably as an anti-communist narrative – is fully realized.  This is compelling work, probably only brought down a notch in our modern sensibilities by the melodramatic acting style of the day.  Remember, in the early part of our film history, we still had not a single clue how exact the camera would be.  The camera remains static and the viewer only gets a few cue cards for lines and lines of dialogue.

The Penalty, celebrating its color tinted corrected blu-ray release from Kino International, is a top-shelf thriller that needs to be seen as the character piece it is.

{2jtab: Film Details}

MPAA Rating: This titlae has not been rated by the MPAA.
Runtime: 90 mins.
Director: Wallace Worsley
Writer: Gouverneur Morris  
Cast: Charles Clary; Dowris Pawn; Lon Chaney; Jim Mason
Genre: Drama | Crime | Horror
Tagline: A picture that will set the whole town talking.
Memorable Movie Quote: "When Satan fell from Heaven he looked for power in Hell."
Distributor: Goldwyn Distributing Company
Official Site:
Release Date: August, 1920
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: October 23, 2012

Synopsis: A deformed criminal mastermind plans to loot the city of San Francisco as well as revenge himself on the doctor who mistakenly amputated his legs.

{2jtab: Blu-ray Review}

Component Grades Movie Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray Experience

Blu-ray Details:

Available on Blu-ray - October 23, 2012
Screen Formats: 1.33:1
Subtitles: None
Audio: Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1; Music: LPCM 2.0
Discs: 50GB Blu-ray Disc; Single disc (1 BD)
Region Encoding: A

Kino’s superb 1080p/AVC transfer has been mined from its own 35mm archival restoration from the collection of the George Eastman House.  The level of grain in the print is simply beautiful.  There are moments of dust flecks and a bit of debris, but the filmic quality of the transfer – almost completely free of scratches – is remarkable.  The detail registered by the camera and the limited lighting of the time period is also superb.  Loose hairs in fabrics are spotted.  Returning to the filmmaker’s original intentions, the remastered image has been tinted with a blue, sepia or purplish hue that is in keeping with the original print's specifications.  The audio comes in two separate recordings one can access at the title screen, The Mont Alto Orchestra DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and The Mont Alto Orchestra 2.0 LPCM.  While front-loaded, there is a nice separation of orchestral sounds throughout the recording.

Supplements:

Commentary:

• None

Special Features:

The supplementals begin strong with a peak into Chaney’s actual make-up kit.  Hosted by Michael F. Blake, Chaney’s Secrets Revealed is easily the – other than the film itself – the reason to own this release.  Blake, who is the author of several Chaney books, gives viewers a glimpse into the real lunch box Chaney used as his makeup case.  Interesting and provides a great deal of information about the man.  There is also a newsreel giving us the only known footage of Chaney’s The Miracle Man, as well as a one reeler from 1914 entitled By The Sun’s Rays, which stars Chaney in his only western.  While not too comprehensive, it’s hard to see how these supplementals disappoint.

• Chaney’s Secrets Revealed (20 min)
• By The Sun’s Rays (11 min)
• The Miracle Man (2 min)

{2jtab: Trailer}

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