7/10
Of interest to both reunited tribes—the Chaney and the Browning _completists
31 August 2009
Warning: Spoilers
BY THE SUN'S RAYS, a very early Chaney& Browning collaboration, makes good use of Chaney's _patibular jaw to tell a short concise story about a detective who comes at a mine to investigate how the gold shipments are always attacked. Chaney is the one who always gives away the moment of the secret departure of the shipments. Brief moments with some miners are shown; also, the detective bureau that sends its man to find out who betrays.

Chaney, the villain of this short piece, has a moment of amorous impetuousness—with the otherwise nice Agnes Vernon, who refuses his advances.

Agnes Vernon is really cute as Dora, the object of Chaney's vain desires, and she makes the best out of her short scenes as a provincial coquette; MacQuarrie is the detective, and looks rather dolt, anyway his bodily desires are expressed in an appropriately idyllic setting while Chaney's take the form of the brutality, mindlessness and misplaced impetuosity. Anyway, given the shortness of this flick, Chaney is already quite remarkable and pointed, he has presence, that ominous leaden gloomy glow, and stands out among his screen partners.

Well, it seems I have already told more than is in the flick itself. Yeah, poetical in a poetical—realist way, yet it serves only to allude to the way used by Chaney to accomplish his mischievous plan …. Enjoy your ten minutes with Chaney ….

The title suggests a Pabst melodrama; which the movie isn't.
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