West of Zanzibar
9:20 pm

Directed by Tod Browning
Containing Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore, Mary Nolan

Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius

Hate twists the heart of Phroso the Magician when he finds out his wife is in love with another, and he pursues an elaborate plan for revenge all the way to the Congo. The penultimate collaboration between “cinema of the macabre” director Tod Browning and shape-shifting actor Lon Chaney, West of Zanzibar was lucky not to get banned outright for adapting the lurid Broadway hit play, Kongo, but a finessing of writer credits and a new title appeased the Hayes Office. Reflecting years later on the appeal of Lon Chaney’s series of on-screen outcasts, writer Ray Bradbury once said: “He was someone who acted out our psyches. You fear there is some part of you that’s grotesque, that the world will turn away from.” Audiences certainly did not turn away and the film was a standing-room-only smash hit.

35mm Print courtesy of Warner Bros.

Introduction by Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
Co-presented by MiDNiTES FOR MANiACS