One of the earliest films to showcase the mad genius of Lon Chaney. He scores big here as the kind of tragic villain that movies rarely get right. His amputee gangster, nicknamed Blizzard, is as much an exposed nerve as a dark heart. Sad and ferocious as a caged attack dog, Chaney never lets us forget this character’s bleak story. When he was a kid, a novice
doctor performed the wrong operation on him and needlessly hacked off his legs. Cut to a few decades later and Chaney, about three feet tall and permanently hobbling on crutches, is the big banana of the San Francisco criminal underworld. He’s killed more men than he can count and he wants to kill a whole lot more. San Fran is getting another earthquake in the form of a full-on comic book bad guy-style mob takeover. That’s Chaney’s plan, at least. First though, he wants revenge on that doctor from way back. It’s silent movie storytelling at its most snappy. The plot makes broad gestures toward its point, sure, but the important thing is that Chaney gets an uncluttered path to work. This film is all about him. The amputee effect is next to perfect. Director Wallace Worsley avoids camera tricks in favor of letting Chaney himself astonish the audience—many took him for a genuine amputee—under a heavy coat and with his lower legs strapped harshly to his thighs. It looks painful—and like Chaney partly draws his performance out of the ordeal.