Amazon.com Lon Chaney, the Man of a Thousand Faces, was no mere makeup wizard, as this dark, deviant crime drama shows. Strapping his legs into a painful leather harness to play a double-amputee underworld kingpin, Chaney scrambles through the film like a human spider weaving his criminal web across San Francisco with equal parts seduction and terror. Crippled as child by an incompetent doctor, he dedicates his life to vengeance in a double-barreled plot that will bring both the city and the doctor (now an honored physician) to their knees. Director Wallace Worsley (who later collaborated with Chaney on his legendary Hunchback of Notre Dame) peppers the busy plot with bizarre touches of sexual menace and sadism, and he creates a wicked atmosphere of corruption and murder that implicates every character. Even the absurd twist of a happy ending can't wipe that away. --Sean Axmaker Additional features Kino's DVD features a fine window-boxed transfer from a good-looking master (with some scenes taken from inferior source materials) and a moody modern synthesizer and percussion score by Michael Polher. Supplements include the 1914 single-reel Western By the Sun's Rays (a badly preserved and clichéd curiosity with Chaney as a sneak villain), a short video tour of Chaney's makeup box and costume from The Penalty, two and a half minutes of surviving footage from the lost Chaney film The Miracle Man, an essay by Chaney biographer Michael F. Blake, two trailers, and various stills, photos, and production materials. --Sean Axmaker
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