Chaney in Form

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 654, 4 May 1929, Page 25

Chaney in Form

FILM OF MANY THRILLS

“We&t of Zanzibar” for Regent

WERE is another celluloid test of nerve strength. “West of II Zanzibar,” Lon Chaney’s newest production, is coming to the Regent as a sound synchronised picture. Chaney plays “Dead Legs Flint,” a crippled avenger, while Lionel Barrymore, Mary Nolan and Warner Baxter are in the cast.

The announcement, “Chaney in Form/' means that the Man of a Thousand Faces has prepared another packet of thrills and melodramatic excitements for his public. For the first time he will be assisted by sound and his own musical score.

“West of Zanzibar” was in course

of preparation for ■ many months, and I greater care was 1 taken than for any I previous Chaney | picture. It is said 1 to be his most un- 1 usual and intriguing | effort, breaking, as I it does, entirely 1 new ground while § travelling on an 1

age-old theme.

Africa is the setting of the Aim, and all the mystery of the Dark Continent is portrayed in the jungle sequences when the brains of a white man fail to combat the superstition of his black enemies. The story of the picture is the history of a man who spends a lifetime punishing the scoundrel who stole his wife. Flint, a vaudeville magician, is crippled in the attempt to deal with Crane, his betrayer. Later a child is born, and Flint tracks his enemy to Zanzibar to exact revenge, meanwhile rearing the child badly.

Years later lie invites Crane to see the mass of ivory Flint was stolen, then presents the girl. But she turns out to be Flint’s daughter. Crane is killed, and the superstitious natives demand the life of the girl too for the funeral pyre. Flint holds them off long enough for her to escape with a renegade doctor, and then he takes her. place on the burning pyre. This is one of Chaney’s very best thrillers, and exploits him in a part of amazing strength.