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"The Ace Of Hearts", another of the films in the recent Lon Chaney Collection, is not very good. Like "The
Penalty", also based on a story by Gouverneur Morris, it concerns a more or less preposterous netherworld society --
this one dedicated to the vigilante murder of menaces to society who are beyond the reach of the law. This genre of potboiler
dates back to the Victorian era -- Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Suicide Club" is a particularly entertaining example
-- but had a revived currency in the early decades of silent film.
In the DVD commentary, Michael F. Blake suggests that in the Morris-derived films it is meant to reference a popular fear
of Communist conspiracies at work in America -- the Red Scare, which reached its peak around the time the film was made. The
members of the secret society in "The Ace Of hearts" seem well-to-do, but Blake points out that they have anachronistic
facial hair which might have suggested Russian backgrounds to audiences of the times.
In this film, the story premise serves mostly as an excuse for an atmosphere of weirdness. We are squarely in the genre
of the grotesque, though there are few visual shocks, except for Chaney's bizarre hair-do and some faintly macabre images
at the end of the film. The members of the secret society have mundane rituals -- coded door knocks, selection of assignments
by a deal of cards -- which are enacted with the utmost gravity and in excruciating detail. Their weapon of choice is a tiny
bomb of remarkable power, concealed in what looks like a large billfold, which must have seemed very futuristic in the days
before plastic explosives.
The seriousness with which all this is presented is what gives the film its demented tone -- it all seems to have been
imagined by a madman just slightly out of touch with reality. Indeed, there are times when one thinks there might be a powerful
expressionist fable trapped somewhere in the material, struggling to escape Wallace Worsley's relentlessly, mind-numbingly
dull visual style. He displays here absolutely no plastic imagination whatsoever, either in the framing of shots or in the
staging of scenes, and the pacing throughout is extremely slow. "The Penalty", also directed by Worsley, is by comparison
far more atmospheric and lively. There are some lovely shots of a semi-rural California train stop at the end, and a few arresting
images scattered throughout out the film, but on the whole it is visually mediocre.
A melodramatic love triangle emerges clumsily in the narrative -- between Chaney, the sole female member of the society,
played by Leatrice Joy, and the member chosen for the newest assassination, played by John Bowers. Joy's character seems to
be sexually aroused by the murder about to be committed, and marries the chosen assassin the night before the deed is to be
done -- and even says at one point that if Chaney, the rejected suitor, had been chosen as the assassin she might have married
him instead.
The charming perversity of this is quickly subsumed in more conventional sentiments. After a night of marital bliss,
during which Chaney lurks outside their apartment building, standing in the rain and eventually crouching on the stoop until
dawn, the newlyweds begin to doubt the mission that might separate them if it somehow goes wrong. And, as Joy's character
puts it, hatred doesn't seem so attractive now that they've discovered love. Will her new husband go through with the job?
If he wimps out, will he suffer death at the hands of Chaney, carrying out the provision of the society for such a dereliction
of duty? Upon these questions hangs the less than compelling climax of the tale.
The result is an undistinguished program picture -- fascinating primarily as an example of same . . . and for Chaney.
He doesn't have a lot to do, but he does it brilliantly. His physical stillness is riveting. When he launches into a pantomime
of high-gear emotion he overwhelms the screen with a grace that is balletic, sublime and startling all at once. Because the
characters and their motivations are all rather abstract, there is little to hold on to but Chaney's sheer virtuosity as a
physical performer -- but that's always worth admiring and studying with care.
The fine score by Vivek Madalla helps make the film watchable and intensifies the somewhat mechanical suspense at the
climax. Blake's commentary is superb, filled with factual information which helps us place the film in its era. It contains
a lot of information which will be familiar to readers of his books on Chaney, and to silent film buffs in general, but he's
managed to strike a good balance between educating the novice and edifying the more knowledgeable.
There is one oddity in the score which I can't resist mentioning -- it uses, inadvertently I'm sure, a musical theme from
Nino Rota's score for "The Godfather". There's a subliminal sense in this, since the image of boardroom-like meetings
by men in suits, plotting violent and extra-legal manipulations of the social order, recalls "The Godfather" with
some precision. It's a connection I wouldn't have made without Madalla's musical Freudian slip.
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