The second to last collaboration from Tod Browning and Lon Chaney is quite an entertaining, if not predictable, melodrama. Typical for Tod Browning, the setting is an exotic locale--first the circus, then Africa. Chaney plays a magician whose wife leaves him for a man seeking his fortune in Africa (Lionel Barrymore), but not before Chaney is debilitatingly crippled. Chaney spends the next eighteen years plotting his revenge, now known as "Dead-Legs" to the African tribes. For such a twisted film, it's pretty ordinary for Chaney and Browning. You could see the twist coming from a mile away, but that was mostly irrelevant because of Chaney's great performance. Tod Browning's direction has a solid, workmanlike quality to it. Consisting of mostly static shots, it lacks the movement and style of some its late 1920s peers, but makes up for it with Chaney and the African setting. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the film was paced, something I'm not accustomed to in silent films. The musical accompaniment prepared for it on TCM was quite appropriate and fit the picture well. West of Zanzibar is a quick, twisted, and enjoyable melodrama that is worth being considered as one of the lesser Chaney-Browning greats, but a great nonetheless.
7/10
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