 |
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
|
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
 |
|
After elephant hunter Crane (Lionel Barrymore) has stolen his wife he
has only later found dead in a church, crippled former stage magician
Phroso (Lon Chaney) has waited simply forever to take his revenge: It's
now 18 years since all the tragic events, and Phroso, a trader residing
West of Zanzibar, has surrounded himself with all the cutthroats the
region has to offer, and has made himself the leading voodoo highpriest of
the region too. And he has only recently started robbing Crane's ivory
shipments, but in such a clumsy manner that Crane simply has to be able to
track him down some day soon - which is all part of Phroso's diabolical
scheme. He has also lured a young and orphaned hooker, Maizie (Mary Nolan)
to his place, pretending to be her father - but once she's with him, he
only tortures her and turns her into a hopeless alcoholic. Eventually,
Crane makes it to Phroso's place, and Phroso presents him Maizie as his
daughter - but Crane only tells him he had never actually had intercourse
with Phroso's wife, so Maizie ... has to be Phroso's daugther. Now that's
bad, even made worse by the fact that Phroso has already told the natives
to kill Crane to then have his daughter burned with him according to
native customs - so in a word, he has condemned his own daughter to death.
Now with the help of Doc (Warner Baxter), the one of his cutthroats with
still a little bit of good in him, Phroso desperately tries to convince
Maizie that he is going to help her escape from the natives. This he
succeeds to do in the very end, and Maizie escapes certain death via a
coffin with a revolving floor, and manages to escape the Kongo with Doc by
her side, but the native somehow see through Phroso's treachery and burn
him to ashes in the end. On a pure story level, West Of
Zanzibar might be more than a bit pulpy, and it's pretty predictable
and full of unlikely plotholes, too, but it also shows horror legend Lon
Chaney at the top of his acting game, managing to turn in a not only
physically eccentric and impressive performance, but also to turn his
character from fragile to despicable and back more than once in the same
movie (sometimes the same scene even). He is of course also greatly helped
by Tod Browning, who doesn't bombard us with another postcard depiction of
the jungle but emphasizes on the dark and brooding atmosphere of his
locations, turning in one of the most menacing images of the jungle ever. Recommended,
actually. By the way, technically, this was a sound film, but
the soundtrack only consists of a musical score and a handful of sound
effects while the dialogue is delivered merely via titlecards.
|
amazon.co.uk
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
find West of Zanzibar at adultvideouniverse.com
