The free film series "The Screening Room: Classics, Crowd-Pleasers, Cult Favorites and Neglected Gems" launches its lineup for April with a 90th-anniversary salute to one of silent-screen legend Lon Chaney’s most memorable movie roles.
Director Wallace Worsley’s dark, daring and still harrowing thriller "The Penalty" (1920) will be screened at 7 p.m. Friday, April 2, at the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library, 350 N. Wood Ave., downtown Florence.
Based on a novel by Gouverneur Morris ("The Ace of Hearts," "The Man Who Played God"), the suspense melodrama casts Hollywood’s multi-talented “Man of a Thousand Faces” as Blizzard, the vengeance-driven leader of San Francisco’s criminal underworld.
In his childhood, Blizzard was the victim of a surgical operation in which both of his legs were needlessly amputated. As an adult, Blizzard’s criminal behavior is intensified by his obsession for revenge against the surgeon who left him cruelly crippled and an outcast from society.
Friday’s screening of "The Penalty" marks not only the 90th anniversary of the film’s release, but also the 127th anniversary of the birth of its star. Lon Chaney was born on April Fool’s Day, April 1, 1883, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “The Man of a Thousand Faces” died in Hollywood of lung cancer on Aug. 26, 1930, at the age of 47.
To perform his demanding leading role as the criminal mastermind of "The Penalty," Chaney tied both of his lower legs back and walked on his kneecaps during shooting. The process proved to be so painful that Chaney could only endure the harness for ten minutes at a time.
In addition to Chaney, "The Penalty" stars silent actors Charles Clary, Doris Pawn, Jim Mason, Milton Ross, Ethel Grey Terry and Kenneth Harlan. Worsley would later direct Chaney in his iconic title role as Victor Hugo’s "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."
"The Screening Room" is sponsored by the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library and Pillar of Fire. The series is organized and hosted by film historian and Pillar of Fire founder Terry Pace, who teaches English at UNA.
All "Screening Room" programs are free and open to the public. For details, call the library at (256) 764-6564 or Pillar of Fire at (256) 366-4512, or e-mail pillaroffire@bellsouth.net.
“Fate chained me to evil. For that I must pay the penalty.” – Blizzard (Lon Chaney) in Wallace Worsley’s "The Penalty" (1920)
Original Post