The Monster *** (1925, Lon Chaney Sr, Johnny Arthur, Gertrude Olmstead, Hallam Cooley) – Classic Movie Review 5857

Lon Chaney Sr enjoys himself as Dr Ziska, a renegade mad scientist who is carrying out experiments in resurrecting dead bodies but finds he needs more ‘blud’. So he diverts the car passengers driving past his Gothic mansion sanitorium into his cellar.

Johnny Arthur co-stars as general store clerk and aspiring detective Johnny Goodlittle who finds mad doctor Ziska has taken over the abandoned asylum he enters while investigating a mysterious disappearance close to the asylum.

With too much humour tailored into the piece, director Roland West’s 1925 The Old Dark House-style movie is daft and naive-seeming silent horror comedy stuff, based on a play by Crane Wilbur. Arthur’s cowardly comic relief character Goodlittle is a bit of a pain.

But it is lip-smackingly vigorously done, with an eerie atmosphere, splendid set designs by W L Heywood and striking black and white visuals by Hal Mohr. And it is a fair example of Chaney Sr’s work.

Metro Goldwyn’s fastidious production is an obvious asset and it is fascinating as a precursor of the similar The Old Dark House (1932) and The Cat and the Canary (1939).

Also in the cast are Gertrude Olmstead, Hallam Cooley, Walter James, Charles Sellon, Knute Erickson, George Austin, Edward McWade, Ethel Wales and Herbert Prior.

TCM shows it with an alternative score.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5857

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