"West of Zanzibar" (1928) Lon Chaney & Lionel Barrymore

☆"West of Zanzibar" is a 1928 American synchronized sound film directed by Tod Browning. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film process. The screenplay concerns a vengeful stage magician named Phroso (Lon Chaney) who becomes paralyzed in a brawl with a rival (Lionel Barrymore). The supporting cast includes Mary Nolan and Warner Baxter. The screenplay was written by Elliott J. Clawson, based on the 1926 play Kongo by Charles de Vonde and Kilbourn Gordon.

☆PLOT:

Anna (Jacqueline Gadsden) cannot bring herself to tell her professional magician husband, The Great Phroso (Lon Chaney), that she is leaving him. Her lover, an ivory trader named Crane (Lionel Barrymore), informs Phroso that he is taking Anna away with him to Africa, and when an argument ensues, Crane pushes the distraught husband away from him so forcefully that he falls over a railing and is crippled, losing the use of his legs.

After leaving the hospital, Phroso learns to get around the neighborhood by propelling himself on a small wooden platform. After a year, he learns that Anna has returned from Africa apparently because Crane tired of her and threw her out. He finds his wife dead from starvation in a church, with a baby beside her. He swears to avenge himself on both Crane and the child. He adopts the child and moves to Africa with her.

Eighteen years later, Phroso (nicknamed "Dead-Legs" Flint) rules over a small outpost inhabited by "Doc" (Warner Baxter), Babe (Kalla Pasha), Tiny (Tiny Ward) and a native named Bumbu (Curtis Nero) in the depths of the African jungle. Through his magic tricks, Phroso dominates the local natives who call him the "White Voodoo". He has his men steal ivory repeatedly from Crane by having Tiny dress up as an evil voodoo spirit to frighten away Crane's black porters. Meanwhile, Phroso sends Babe to bring back a blonde prostitute named Maizie (Mary Nolan) from the "lowest dive in Zanzibar", where for years Phroso has had her raised. She is told only that she will finally get to meet her father.

When she arrives, Phroso denies being Maisie's father (to her great relief), but refuses to tell her why she has been brought there and treats her with undisguised hatred. The first night, she witnesses a gruesome tribal custom: when a man dies, his wife or daughter is burned alive on the same funeral pyre. As the days go by, Maizie gradually wins the perpetually drunk Doc's heart. However, Phroso purposely turns her into an alcoholic.

Phroso then sends word to Crane where he can find the people who are robbing his ivory. When Crane shows up and sees Maizie, Phroso tells him that Maizie is his daughter. To Phroso's surprise, Crane breaks out in laughter. He informs Phroso that Anna never went with him to Africa because she hated him for paralyzing her husband. Maizie is actually Phroso's child! Before he can absorb the news, the next step of his plan unfolds; the natives shoot and kill Crane. Now that Crane has been killed, custom demands that his daughter Maisie be burned with him on his funeral pyre.

Realizing now that she is actually his daughter, Phroso uses a magic trick to try to save Maisie from being burned alive. With the natives watching, he puts her in an upright wooden coffin with a secret exit in the back and closes the lid. When he reopens it, there is nothing but a skeleton inside. Meanwhile, Doc, Maizie and the others flee down to the river and escape by boat. However, the natives do not believe Phroso's claim that an evil spirit has taken Maizie; they realize he has tricked them. The screen fades to black as the natives close in on Phroso. Later, a native fishes a medallion out of the ashes of the funeral pyre, the same medallion that had hung around Phroso's neck. Meanwhile, Doc and Maizie in each other's arms, among others, safely escape down the river in a boat.