Nomads of the North / The Shock
The Man of a Thousand Faces wears his own rugged countenance in this rousing pair of silent melodramas from the early 1920s. Though typically known for his heavily made-up portrayals of monstrous villains and disabled outcasts, Lon Chaney plays the noble leading man in the gorgeously filmedNomads of the North, adapted from James Oliver Curwood's timeless tale of love and murder on the lush Canadian frontier. Chaney is heroic as he saves his beloved Nanette (Betty Blythe) from a snidely suitor, but he's nearly upstaged by the adorable pets Brimstone and Neela, a black Labrador and brown bear cub (respectively) who survive river rapids, cougars, and the film's climactic (and genuinely dangerous) forest inferno.The Shockfinds Chaney in familiar "cripple" mode as an underworld denizen seeking redemption, foiling the dragon queen of San Francisco's Chinatown and winning the heart of a sympathetic beauty. Vague shades of Quasimodo here, and Chaney's follow-up was the classicHunchback of Notre Dame.--Jeff Shannon