The wrongful amputation of a child's legs due to a doctor's misdiagnosis leads to the embittered rage of the patient as an adult. The coping with not having legs, often repulsing others and pretty much ruining the relationship with his father, Blizzard(Lon Chaney in a mesmerizing performance)has risen to the ranks of Master of the Underworld in San Francisco. He's a cruel, sadistic tyrant who rules his district(The Barbary Coast)with such an iron fist that even police rather fear him. He has dreamed for years of having new legs grafted, following the success in the surgical field of Dr. Ferris(Charles Clary)with a demented goal of revenge if his desires aren't met. He's also planning to take over San Francisco as a Caesar(..he's really quite mad)with his dance-hall girls making hats so that he can start a revolt using supposed foreigners as his bait to draw out the authorities. Anyway, secret agent Rose(Ethel Grey Terry)is moved in to snuff out Blizzard's operation, but soon finds herself in love with him. Blizzard also has plotted a scheme to get back at Ferris by moving in on his daughter..Blizzard sits in as a model for daughter Barbara(Doris Pawn)whose creating a sculpture of Satan, while her fiancé is enraged with jealousy and fear. For a good hour and fifteen minutes, Chaney etches the portrait of a man consumed with evil and displays this cunning shark playing a game with others as his face twists in snarls and sneaky grins. I don't buy the idea, though, that a contusion at the base of the skull, placing pressure on the brain, causes Blizzard to become the purely maniacal ringleader of crime he so becomes, but the film's roots is in tragedy and "paying the piper" so the filmmakers seemed determined to have him go out facing the music as a wholesome human being.
Review of The Penalty
