Not another incredible performance from the incomparable Lon Chaney...
Not that his performance was sans heavy character makeup...
Not even that this was a film of his I'd scarcely heard of before today, but rather...
It was seeing his good guy finally gets the girl for himself instead of sacrificing his own broken heart for her to be with someone else! YAY!! :-)
Lon Chaney, who's earned my utmost admiration and respect, was perhaps the greatest character actor - EVER! No other performer had the effect of keeping me scared out of my wits at even just the THOUGHT of seeing a picture of him (as Erik "The Phantom")!
It took me over 20 years to get over that fear, having come to love the "Phantom" character partially from films & recordings of the great Michael Crawford as the original "musical" Phantom. Silly as that may sound, I think it's quite a tribute to Lon Chaney, who first scared audiences with his "Phantom" nearly EIGHTY-EIGHT years ago!
Of course, it was this very role (and that of the Hunchback of Notre Dame) that has Chaney mis-labeled today as a "horror" actor, but OH, he was so MUCH more, and this movie, "The Shock", is just one fine example of why he was!
Not that his performance was sans heavy character makeup...
Not even that this was a film of his I'd scarcely heard of before today, but rather...
It was seeing his good guy finally gets the girl for himself instead of sacrificing his own broken heart for her to be with someone else! YAY!! :-)
Lon Chaney, who's earned my utmost admiration and respect, was perhaps the greatest character actor - EVER! No other performer had the effect of keeping me scared out of my wits at even just the THOUGHT of seeing a picture of him (as Erik "The Phantom")!
It took me over 20 years to get over that fear, having come to love the "Phantom" character partially from films & recordings of the great Michael Crawford as the original "musical" Phantom. Silly as that may sound, I think it's quite a tribute to Lon Chaney, who first scared audiences with his "Phantom" nearly EIGHTY-EIGHT years ago!
Of course, it was this very role (and that of the Hunchback of Notre Dame) that has Chaney mis-labeled today as a "horror" actor, but OH, he was so MUCH more, and this movie, "The Shock", is just one fine example of why he was!