# The Penalty (1920 film)

The Penalty is a 1920 film about a criminal mastermind who plans to seek revenge on the doctor who mistakenly amputated his legs.
    Directed by Wallace Worsley. Written by Charles Kenyon, based on a novel by Gouverneur Morris.

## Blizzard

* Fate chained me to evil, for that I must pay the Penalty. - That is a great puzzle. Perhaps I am going to see it solved.
* [to Barbara] Some excellent judges think that I resemble Satan.
* Do I look like Satan? Before I am through with her and her father, they'll think I'm the devil himself.
* Laughter burns a cripple like acid.
* Once before a woman surfeited me with her caresses. She's dead!
* You have worked in the dark long enough - this is the plan I have been developing for two years. At twelve noon on that day I shall loot the City of San Francisco. Your ten thousand foreign malcontents will filter into the city in small detachments. The signal will be an explosion. By fire and riots I shall draw the police and military into the suburbs. The heart of the city will be left defenseless - ours to loot at will. And then we shall vanish with our treasure.
* Everything comes to him who waits.
* I am the unhappiest beast in the world.
* Rose, my dear! Under the piano, my darling - we'll have some music. I have a feeling I shall waft you into Heaven.
* I've waked from a terrible dream! I was a devil - - I did things that I shudder to think of!
* And I shall walk as men walk. I shall be the master of a city! And for my mangled years the city shall pay me - - - - with the pleasures of a Nero and the powers of a Caesar!

## Lichtenstein

* I could get him for theft, arson, murder - - but his criminal machine would still grind on. Through the Master I must reach his slaves - the underground powers of the Reds. He's gathered up his dance hall girls and he's put them to work in his house - making hats - thousands of hats. I must know why!

## Title Card

* In time the man would mangle the soul of the daughter, even as the father had mangled the body of the man.

## Dialogue

    Doctor: Good God, you should not have amputated!
    Dr. Ferris: What?
    Doctor: You have mangled this child for life!
    Barbara Ferris: How do you happen to know so much about Art?
    Blizzard: My father, who shall be nameless, was a distinguished man. But he detested little boys with their legs clipped off. So at fifteen I hobbled out of his life.
    Barbara Ferris: Why do you live in the underworld?
    Blizzard: When Satan fell from Heaven he looked for power in Hell.
    Blizzard: Better come out of that closet or I'll begin to shoot!
    [Rose comes out, crying]
    Blizzard: Crying won't help - talking may.
    Rose: What's the use - - you're going to kill me anyhow.

## Taglines

* Blizzard, master of San Francisco's underworld, legless, deformed—the weirdest character ever presented on the screen—you'll never forget him.

## Cast

* Charles Clary — Dr. Ferris
* Doris Pawn — Barbary Nell
* James Pier Mason — Frisco Pete
* Lon Chaney — Blizzard
* Milton Ross — Lichtenstein
* Ethel Grey Terry — Rose
* Kenneth Harlan — Dr. Wilmot Allen
* Claire Adams — Barbara Ferris

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on The Penalty (1920 film) on Wikipedia
* Works related to The Penalty (film) on Wikisource
* Media related to The Penalty (film) on Wikimedia Commons
* The Penalty quotes at the Internet Movie Database
* The Penalty at Rotten Tomatoes
* The Penalty at Allmovie