Lon Chaney, the man of a thousand faces, carries this film playing dual roles – both The Blackbird and The Bishop- his own little version of Jekyll and Hyde
A strong opening- a montage of close-ups of faces – people living in London’s limehouse district
Chaney clearly relishes both roles- the sinister grin of The Blackbird and contorting his body, using the crutches, for The Bishop
Browning makes a few mistakes here- he intermixes exposition title cards (this is a silent film) with dialogue cards. Two people will be talking and then he’ll have “years ago Polly had been The Blackbird’s wife”—not good. He also forgets about The Bishop character for far too long and in the final act it does turn into a dialogue-fest
Still, it is worth archiving for Chaney’s work and certainly the narrative is engaging. Chaney often wore masks and hid in his roles- so to see his wide expressive face full of revenge and duplicity is worth watching here
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