That TRIUMPH exists in any form is a testament to the enduring interest in its second-billed player, Lon Chaney. It's the melodramatic story of Dorothy Phillips, who longs to be an actress on the legitimate stage. She gains a foothold in Dudley Weyman's company, and soon falls in love with Chaney, a sickly, but aspiring playwright. She convinces Weyman to produce Chaney's play so she can have her triumph, but when Weyman catches them rehearsing a romantic clinch for the show, he stops the production and tells her he will only let the premiere proceed if she will submit to his embraces,
Boo! Hiss! The movie was originally five reels, but the final two reels are missing. Those that survive appear to be standard-issue material from Universal in this period, when it was the busiest studio in the world, and truly a movie factory, turning out five-reel melodramas on a tight budget and schedule. Miss Phillips' performance seems rote, if competent. Mr. Chaney's seems to be a precursor to many of the roles he would play in the late 1920s for MGM; although here he is young enough for the leading lady to fall in love with, he is too ill to be sexually threatening to anyone except the other actors, particularly the pudgy and rapacious Mr. Weyman. It's a movie that fans of Mr. Chaney will want to see, yet, having seen it, will not be honestly feel it adds anything important to the corpus of his work.
Boo! Hiss! The movie was originally five reels, but the final two reels are missing. Those that survive appear to be standard-issue material from Universal in this period, when it was the busiest studio in the world, and truly a movie factory, turning out five-reel melodramas on a tight budget and schedule. Miss Phillips' performance seems rote, if competent. Mr. Chaney's seems to be a precursor to many of the roles he would play in the late 1920s for MGM; although here he is young enough for the leading lady to fall in love with, he is too ill to be sexually threatening to anyone except the other actors, particularly the pudgy and rapacious Mr. Weyman. It's a movie that fans of Mr. Chaney will want to see, yet, having seen it, will not be honestly feel it adds anything important to the corpus of his work.