Where East Is East (1929)
US 65m, B&W, Silent
Director: Tod Browning; Cast: Lon Chaney, Lupe Vélez, Estelle Taylor, Lloyd Hughes
As a battle-scarred hunter of wild animals for circuses and zoos, Tiger Haynes (Chaney) is also a loving and single father who is forced to take drastic action to protect his daughter Toyo from her estranged mother’s advances on her fiance. As Browning’s last film featuring Chaney, Where East is East may not be their best collaboration, but it is memorable for Estelle Taylor’s seductively sinister character Madam De Sylva, who seemingly gets whatever she desires, though gets more than she bargained for when Rangho the Gorilla pays her a visit (Klaus Ming April 2017).
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I saw this a few years ago on TCM. Lon Chaney is a tiger hunter in Southeast Asia and Lupe Velez is his daughter and there’s a pet gorilla on the premises and it’s only 65 minutes long and its directed by Tod Browning. So it’s all kinds of AWESOME!
It’s not quite The Unknown or He Who Gets Slapped or West of Zanzibar but I liked it more than well enough.
Browning didn’t mess around. Unlike a lot of silent films, he packed a lot into a small package. Some modern film makers could learn a lesson or two!