Product Description

The masterful Lon Chaney stars in these two classic silent films. "Outside the Law" (1920, 75 min.) - In this early collaboration with director Tod Browning (Dracula, Freaks), Chaney delivers a dual performance of dramatic intensity, starring as Ah Wing, a kind-hearted student of Confucian philosophy, and Black Mike Sylva, a murderous rake of the San Francisco underworld. Like night and day, Ah Wing and Sylva are physical representations of the opposing factions of light and dark that weigh upon the moral conscience of the film's protagonist, Molly Madden (Priscilla Dean), who must choose between lives of crime and domesticity. "Shadows" (1922, 68 min.) - In one of the most challenging performances of his illustrious career, Chaney stars as a Chinese laundryman caught in a web of small-town jealousy and extortion. Both films features new orchestral scores.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #93796 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-06-27
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Dubbed in: Japanese
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 143 minutes

Amazon.com
Lon Chaney is not the star of Tod Browning's Outside the Law (the second of 10 pictures they made together), but he practically steals the film. Browning cast the man of a thousand faces in two roles, as the despicable gangster Black Mike ("a rat, a vulture, and a snake," according to the titles) and as the devoted Chinese servant to a Confucian Chinatown teacher. Priscilla Dean stars as Molly, the daughter of a San Francisco underworld leader lured back to a life of crime by Mike, who frames her father for murder and then plots to double-cross her as well. Hard-bitten kewpie doll Dean underplays her gangster-moll part beautifully, and Chaney's Mike is dastardly and dangerous, a sneering hard case with a scar running down his cheek. Browning pours on the syrup in the film's middle section as Molly's hard heart is slowly melted by her gangster lover and the cloyingly cute kid from next door. Then he twists it back from melodrama with an escalating series of taut confrontations that build to an exciting, well-staged climactic shootout. The Kino print, taken from the Blackhawk Collection, shows some serious deterioration near the end, but it clears up in time for the fireworks. The orchestral score is edited together from other music and enhanced with sound effects. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

A good value Lon Chaney double feature
I have now seen 10 of Lon Chaney's films and I would say that they are nearly all enjoyable. The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame are masterpieces, the rest vary in quality, but Chaney's varied performances always make them interesting. The two films on this DVD are relatively minor works. Strangely, the one by the more famous director Tod Browning, Outside the Law, is the lesser of the two. This is, in part, because it is not really a Chaney feature at all. He plays two roles, one a sympathetic Asian character, the other an evil criminal out to destroy the leading characters. This is the problem, for Chaney's supporting characters disappear for long stretches of the film. The main story is thus a rather dull affair about two somewhat colourless lovers trying to go straight and return the jewels they have stolen. The film only really comes alive with Chaney. The biggest difficulty with this film however, is the print quality. It is a black and white print which, for the most part is fine, but towards the end there is some serious damage, so much so that at times the picture all but disappears. There are furthermore some frames missing so that sometimes the story jumps rather abruptly. The second film on this DVD, Shadows, is much better. The story is interesting and keeps the viewer guessing, so it is best not to read any synopses before hand. Chaney has a major role as a Chinese laundry man and shows how he could contort his body and face into a role. Some people might have a problem with the titles attempting to imitate his speech patterns. But it must be remembered that it was typical of silent films to try to portray visually the differences in the way people speak. The same happens, in other films, with French or Cockney characters and was not considered to be derogatory. The print of this film is fine. It is a sepia tinted and for the most part free from damage. Again there are a few frames missing, but these do not affect the story continuity. I would recommend this DVD for Shadows alone, the fact that it includes Outside the Law as well makes it good value indeed.

Chaney Shines In Another Groundbreaking Role
This film packs more of a punch than I assume it did when it was first released. In the film, Lon Chaney plays a Chinese laundry man, who literally washes ashore during a violent storm. The (mostly white) community at first looks upon this outsider with distrust, but eventually somes to see the error of their ways. Of note: this is the FIRST portrayal of a Chinese character in a favorable role in Hollywood history. They were previously shown as opium smoking layabouts, dealing in white slavery. Lon had to fight the studio, who thought the public wouldn't accept this!

One average feature, one very good one
'Outside the Law' (1920), which was directed by Lon Chaney's favorite director, Tod Browning, is rather typical of the features Lon made pre-1923, when he became a big star in his own right. Though he had achieved fame in 1919, it was as a character actor, not really so much a starring actor just yet. Here he plays a dual role as secondary characters Ah Wing, a good guy, and Black Mike Sylva, a really nasty crime lord of the San Francisco underworld. The true main characters of this film are Priscilla Dean (at the time Universal's top female star) and Wheeler Oakman as Molly Madden and her boyfriend Bill Ballard. Black Mike frames Molly's father for murder, and while he's in jail, Molly is tipped off by Bill that Mike is planning to double-cross her in another crime he's plotting. She and Bill in turn double-cross Mike, and hide out in an apartment with the jewels they stole, constantly afraid the police (or, worse yet, Mike and his cronies) are going to discover their whereabouts. Meanwhile Chang Lo, a wise Confucian friend of Mr. Madden's, warns the police that even though he's innocent, he's going to emerge from jail with murder in his heart because of the injustice that was done to him (in line with how the film opens with a quote from Confucius, "If a country had none but good rulers for a hundred years, crime might be stamped out and the death penalty abolished"). He also predicts that Molly and Bill will voluntarily turn themselves in and hand over the jewels to the police, so there will be no need to hunt them down like animals and arrest them. Most of the film centers on Bill and Molly's increasingly cramped existence in hiding and their attempts to go straight, influenced by a little boy who lives across the way. Things don't really start getting exciting and fast-paced till Lon's evil character shows up again, culminating in a lot of great fight scenes. Unfortunately, these last two reels or so show a lot of deterioration in some of the frames, but not so much so that we ever miss anything really exciting.

'Shadows' (1922) is the superior of the two films. Lon plays Yen Sin, a Chinese laundryman who is one of a handful of survivors of a shipwreck that lands in the small fishing village of Urkey. Although the Chinese characters in the average film of this era were routinely portrayed even more offensively than African-American characters, Yen Sin is a very sympathetic character, a good guy, with none of the usual Sinophobia typical of this period. Though most of the locals don't want anything to do with him because he's not only foreign but not a Christian, he does find love and friendship with one of the local boys, and with Sympathy Gibbs and the young new minister John Malden (the original Harrison Ford), who quickly get married. They don't treat him like he's a "heathen" who should be avoided and feared, but as a human being who deserves respect and humane treatment as much as any other person in the town. (Although why did his character have to walk around hunched over like that, the way Richard Barthelmess also does in 'Broken Blossoms'? Was this some sort of convention used by white actors playing Chinese characters in this era?) Trouble in paradise emerges when Rev. Malden is away on business and receives a letter purporting to be from Daniel Griggs (the excellent character actor Walter Long), Sympathy's first husband (whom she despised), whom everyone had believed to have perished in the shipwreck. With the help of his fellow-reverend Nate Snow, Rev. Malden starts paying off Griggs, all while unaware that Snow is the one really blackmailing him because he's always had feelings for Sympathy. Ultimately, it is Yen Sin who teaches all of the townspeople a very valuable lesson about the true nature of faith, tolerance, and forgiveness. While ordinarily I find the premise that everyone needs to be converted to Christianity and that people are better off that way morally offensive and severely outdated, that theme is handled a bit more sensitively here than it usually is. It's certainly a more enlightened and progressive approach to the subject than in, say, a story from the Middle Ages. At least here Rev. Malden is trying to convert Yen Sin through love and setting a good example, not through telling him he's doomed and that his own religion is wicked, diabolical, and wrong.

Overall, this is ultimately a pretty good disc, in spite of the uneven first feature on it. Even in Lon's earlier films, he always had a commanding presence and played all of these characters so well, be they good or evil characters. While it might not be something I'd highly recommend to someone just getting into silents or Lon's films in general, it is a real treat for people who are more than just casual fans.