... and yet the man still remains an enigma, because that seems to be the way he wanted it. He always said that between movies there is no Lon Chaney and always eschewed the Hollywood lifestyle.
His entire life is discussed - being born to two deaf mute parents, the apparent divorce of those parents, having to care for his bedbound mother when her arthritis advanced, and then the beginning of his acting career on the stage at age 19. Apparently his first marriage was fraught with jealousies and arguments, and when his wife took poison on stage - she lived but her singing voice was wrecked - in tune with the Victorian values of the time, somehow it was Chaney's stage career that was ruined, and that took him to film acting.
There are clips and stills from his surviving films in the 1910s. Only four of his Universal films remain intact because the films were deliberately destroyed to extract the silver. His good relationship with Irving Thalberg translated into him moving to MGM when the studio was founded, and as a result of MGM making a deliberate effort to preserve its film history, we have a pretty good record of Chaney's work there. Only a few of his MGM films are lost, and these are discussed. There are actually people who saw the lost "London After Midnight" (1927), a kind of holy grail to film preservationists. These witnesses say that they think modern audiences would be disappointed and they mention specifics about the production.
Chaney's favorite film - "Tell It To The Marines". Without makeup or a gimmick Chaney gives a great performance as a Marine Corp drill sergeant, trying to whip recruit William Haines into shape. His performance was so genuine he was named an honorary marine.
Chaney only made one talking film, and there are excerpts. There is speculation that because of his skill with makeup he would likely have gone back to Universal, had he lived, and played Dracula and Frankenstein and just been a big part of the Universal Horror years. But we'll never know. So many big stars with perfectly good voices just didn't make that transition to sound films for reasons that are not clear. As it is, Lon Chaney is frozen in time at age 47, his age at his death, at the top of his career.
If you want the details of Chaney's life and career this is a great documentary, as is anything Kevin Brownlow did. It was an extra on the Warner Bros. DVD set of Lon Chaney silents, but it is absent from the MOD set that replaced it. And unfortunately quite a few of the Lon Chaney DVD sets produced from 2006-2009 were subject to the DVD rot that plagued Warner Bros. DVDs manufactured during that time. But the documentary does pop up from time to time on youtube.
His entire life is discussed - being born to two deaf mute parents, the apparent divorce of those parents, having to care for his bedbound mother when her arthritis advanced, and then the beginning of his acting career on the stage at age 19. Apparently his first marriage was fraught with jealousies and arguments, and when his wife took poison on stage - she lived but her singing voice was wrecked - in tune with the Victorian values of the time, somehow it was Chaney's stage career that was ruined, and that took him to film acting.
There are clips and stills from his surviving films in the 1910s. Only four of his Universal films remain intact because the films were deliberately destroyed to extract the silver. His good relationship with Irving Thalberg translated into him moving to MGM when the studio was founded, and as a result of MGM making a deliberate effort to preserve its film history, we have a pretty good record of Chaney's work there. Only a few of his MGM films are lost, and these are discussed. There are actually people who saw the lost "London After Midnight" (1927), a kind of holy grail to film preservationists. These witnesses say that they think modern audiences would be disappointed and they mention specifics about the production.
Chaney's favorite film - "Tell It To The Marines". Without makeup or a gimmick Chaney gives a great performance as a Marine Corp drill sergeant, trying to whip recruit William Haines into shape. His performance was so genuine he was named an honorary marine.
Chaney only made one talking film, and there are excerpts. There is speculation that because of his skill with makeup he would likely have gone back to Universal, had he lived, and played Dracula and Frankenstein and just been a big part of the Universal Horror years. But we'll never know. So many big stars with perfectly good voices just didn't make that transition to sound films for reasons that are not clear. As it is, Lon Chaney is frozen in time at age 47, his age at his death, at the top of his career.
If you want the details of Chaney's life and career this is a great documentary, as is anything Kevin Brownlow did. It was an extra on the Warner Bros. DVD set of Lon Chaney silents, but it is absent from the MOD set that replaced it. And unfortunately quite a few of the Lon Chaney DVD sets produced from 2006-2009 were subject to the DVD rot that plagued Warner Bros. DVDs manufactured during that time. But the documentary does pop up from time to time on youtube.