By Hank Reineke
The working title of the Universal-Jewel silent
six-reeler The Trap (1922) was Wolf Breed – for reasons that will soon
become apparent. Lon Chaney’s feature
role casting was reported during the first week of September 1921, the film
reportedly to be based on a scenario by Lucien Hubbard. The film was apparently
still in production during late September/early October of 1921. Newspapers were reporting that immediately following
Chaney’s completion of Wolf Breed, the
actor “will appear in The Octave of
Claudius for Goldwyn.” That film would in fact be made, but released as The Blind Bargain (1922), directed by
Wallace Worsley - who would later helm Chaney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Along with London after Midnight
(1927), The Blind Bargain is
inarguably the most sought after of the actor’s lost films.
The
Trap,
by any measure, is a more modest effort than any of the aforementioned trio of
films. The photoplay features Lon Chaney
as Gaspard the Good. His character is so
named as he is a kind and gentle soul. He’s a simple-living, always smiling, bubbly effervescent personality - a
man of good-standing in the small idyllic French Canadian mountain village of
Grand Bellaire. But Gaspard’s usual pleasant
demeanor will soon sour. Returning to
the village from a recent trip, Gaspard discovers that he has not only lost his
girlfriend Thalie (Dagmar Godowsky) to a seemingly well-to-do carpetbagger
named Benson (Alan Hale), but also to his unregistered claim to his pappy’s
hyacinth gemstone mine. Gaspard tries his best to sublimate his personal sorrows,
one title card noting while “The morning sun was no more radiant,” the broken-spirited
Gaspard managed to hold “no malice” within his heart. For a time, anyway.
But things change in the intervening span of seven – yes,
seven – years. The cad Benson has suffered several reversals
of fortunes, beginning with a calamitous cave-in dooming his mining
operation. We also learn Benson has not
been a particularly loving husband to sweet Thalie who we watch as she succumbs
to a fatal illness. Her husband coldly
dismisses his wife’s deathbed lethargy to “laziness.” Sitting astride Thalie’s bedside is her grieving
five-year old son with Benson, “The Boy” (Stanley Goethals). Gaspard too has suffered a shocking reversal
– a shift in personality as the last few years events have left him bitter. Though Benson’s recent streak of bad breaks
should have brought Gaspard a measure of satisfying yin and yang closure, it’s
simply wasn’t enough to erase the sting of his personal anguishes.
So seeking a more punishing revenge on Benson, Gaspard
convinces a local tavern tough that the carpetbagger has been saying awful
things about him. The enraged brute
attempts to assail Benson who unexpectedly defends himself with a pistol shot –
a crime for which he is sentenced to the gallows. But this sentence is later commuted to a
prison sentence when the brute survives the shooting. In the interim, and as per Thalie’s deathbed
wish, Gaspard has taken custody of her son - for whom the bitter ex-lover intends
to administer a misplaced vengeance. But
in short time the innocent “wee waif” reawakens the good in Gaspard’s heart who
becomes a doting model foster parent to the child. But when Gaspard is informed that Benson has
been released from prison with plans to collect his biological son, a
distraught Gaspard - fearful of losing the boy - sets up a diabolical snare involving
a trap door and a starving wolf lying in wait.
It’s a melodrama for sure. In its review of May 20, 1922, Billboard suggested while the storyline
of The Trap was overly “trite,” the
film itself was visually appealing with “most picturesque locations” and
“photography showing some rare and perfect gems of outdoor beauty.” (The film was actually photographed not in
the Canadian wilderness but in the tranquil and majestic canyons of Yosemite
National Park). Chaney’s “remarkable
impersonation” of the French-Canadian Gaspard was noteworthy, even though the
review concedes “the vehicle is not sufficiently strong to do justice to the
ability of the star.” This contrasts
with the view of Variety’s critic who
thought director Robert Thornby’s excessive use of full-frame close-ups of
Chaney – which allowed a bit too much melodramatic over-emoting on the actor’s
part – was nothing if not “tiresome.” Personally,
I disagree with this assessment. Though
there are no shortage of such close-ups, Chaney’s facial expressions on screen enable
the actor to convey emotions of sorrow, joy, malice and anger in a visual manner
that no title card could ever convey as successfully.
That said, The Trap
was an idiosyncratic picture in some sense, and certainly an archetype of the
tortured character roles Chaney would more famously play in the future. Many silent pictures of the day were structured
around romantic angles in their scenarios. But following Gaspard’s loss of both mine and sweetheart Thalie (the
actress being the daughter of the famed Lithuanian-American classical pianist
Leopold Godowsky), the film drops any pretension of romantic conciliation or
renewal. The movie instead focuses on
Chaney’s dark, methodically-plotted and coldly calculated plan of revenge.
Chaney’s real-life “everyman” looks would guarantee his
future was not in his casting as a dashing, romantic matinee idol. The actor was instead more often cast as a
villain or scoundrel or someone living on society’s edges – but one harboring a
conflicted - and occasionally even tender-hearted - soul. The
Trap allows Chaney to move beyond a one dimensional character to more fully
explore the psyche of an aggrieved person’s multi-faceted personality. As a review of The Trap in the Salt Lake
Tribune allows: “You will see and learn to love another side of Lon Chaney
in this picture, as well as despise the old side that we are all so familiar
with.”
If one is to believe an item as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, there was a bit
of on-set controversy when five-year old - and long-locked - Stanley Goethals
went for a haircut during filming. This simple
act caused the filmmakers considerable consternation. There would now be continuity issues as they
still were still in need of photographing insert shots of the child actor. Though actresses Godowsky and Irene Rich (who
plays a school teacher in the film) coddled the child, even remarking how “very
pretty” his new bob appeared to them, Chaney - while diplomatic - remained firmly
professional in his reaction to the news. He reportedly told the child, “Now, Mr. Goethals, don’t you think a
regular guy like yourself, a chap’s that’s playing a big part in a picture, has
a duty to his art?”
When the film was belatedly released in Great Britain in
October of 1922, The Trap was
re-titled The Heart of a Wolf, and
promoted as “A Story of Reckless Adventure.” Which was admittedly a more exciting enticement than the U.S. ad copy
which only offered the film as “A Story of the Great North Woods.” On the other hand, it was the promotional U.S.
advertisements for The Trap that were
among the first to celebrate and anoint Chaney as “The Man of a Thousand
Faces.” (There were even some earlier ads promoting the actor as the man of “a Million Faces – which may have been
taking the sobriquet a bit too far). But
it’s of interest that the ghastly and iconic Chaney make-up creations for such
characters as Hugo’s Quasimodo and Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera, were still in
the actor’s future. They had no role in
his acquisition of the famous “Man of a Thousand Faces” appellation.
Though the notices of The
Trap ranged from general middling praise to slightly unfavorable, the film managed
to do well at the box-office due – possibly due to the ascending big screen
popularity of Chaney. The trades were
reporting “overflow audiences” in the first half of May 1922 with the film
showing better than average staying power through mid-June. When the film reached cities in the Midwest
in August, Variety reported theater
owners were reporting “Sunday business” of The
Trap “was the best of the summer and held up satisfactorily during the
week.”
Even if one diligently searches through old newspaper and
trade publication archives, film industry reportage from the early twenties
often offers contradictory information. But clippings seem to suggest that initial casting for The Trap commenced in September of 1921
with principal photography following in late autumn of the same year. It wasn’t until a Houston Post item - published in late January 1922 - confirmed that
Chaney had “finished the picture” (still titled Wolf Breed) “for which he was especially engaged by
Universal.”
Other news sources indicate that following the wrapping
of The Trap, Chaney was to go
directly into production of another Universal-Jewel feature, one with the
working title of Bittersweet. That film was to be directed by Lambert
Hillyer, who had previously worked with Chaney on the five-reel western for
Paramount-Artcraft Riddle Gwane
(1918) – of which only fragments survive. The title of Bittersweet was
eventually dropped in favor of The Shock,
that picture released in the early summer of 1923.
It’s fair to note that even in this age of near-instant accessible
information, it’s often difficult to satisfactorily trace the production
chronologies and accurate release dates of many silent-era films. Chaney would reportedly appear in no fewer
than twelve films released in the years 1922-1923 – possibly more in as-of-yet
unidentified bit parts. As a news item
from the Des Moines Register (October
30, 1921) accurately assessed, “Lon Chaney is almost the busiest of players in
Hollywood this year. He hardly finishes
one engagement when he has to ruch [sic] on another.” If one is interested in Chaney’s filmography,
the lonchaney.org website of historian Jon C. Mirsalis (the producer of last
year’s Before the Thousand Faces Vol. 2 Blu-ray of early rarities) and
the several exhaustively researched books on Chaney by author Michael F. Blake remain
the essential references.
On a side note: this 1922 effort was not the first time
Chaney would appear in a film titled The
Trap. Silent-era film historians
suggest Chaney had earlier appeared with actress Cleo Madison in a one-reeler also
titled The Trap, this particular film
lensed courtesy of Powers Picture Plays, an indie entity of Universal’s Film
Manufacturing Co., Inc. Moving Picture News of September 27,
1913 indicates that this particular photoplay “drama” was to first see release
on October 3, 1913 – though Chaney biographer Blake notes even this dating is
in doubt: the Universal Picture Code book indicates the release date as October
26, 1913. As The Trap of 1913 is now believed a lost film – and with the
survival plausibility of one-hundred-and-ten year old nitrate prints being what
they are - there’s very little information on this particular picture to
reference.
Oh, well. At least
we have this Kino Lorber Blu-ray of The
Trap (1922) that is nothing short of magnificent. The film has received a well-deserved 4K
restoration by the owners of Universal Pictures, the best elements sourced from
a tinted 16mm print held by the Packard Humanities Institute and a second 16mm
print held by the British Film Institute National Archive. Though most of the film is seen through a
sepia-toned prism, there are a few scenes where the color abruptly switches to a
blue or olive-green screen. There’s very
little damage present aside from a few fleeting rough patches and un-buffed black
base scratches. Music for this particular
release was freshly composed by television and film composer and arranger Kevin
Lax.
Though there is no booklet accompanying this set, there
are two notable bonus features: the
first is one of the earliest Chaney silents that has survived, By the Sun’s Rays (Nestor-Universal,
1914), an eleven minute two-reeler, with Chaney playing a swindling clerk at a
western gold-mine office. (Only
fragments of two earlier Chaney appearances are known to have survived: Poor Jake’s Demise (1913) and The Tragedy of Whispering Creek (1914),
both in the possession of European film archives).
The second feature is Bret Wood’s Behind the Mask, a sixty-five minute documentary of Chaney’s legendary
career. The documentary first appeared
on a Kino VHS in 1995 as one of eight tapes comprising their
decoratively-packaged Lon Chaney Collection. (That tape also included, incidentally, an early VHS appearance of By the Sun’s Rays). In recent years Kino Lorber has given us very
satisfying Chaney Blu ray issues of The
Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback
of Notre Dame, The Penalty, Outside the Law, Broadway Love (this one only available as part of their Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers Blu-ray
set) and, now The Trap. With Kino leading the way with the releasing
of Lon Chaney’s feature films, and Ben Model’s silent-film specialist
Undercrank Productions bringing Blu-ray attention to the surviving elements of
Chaney’s films circa 1914-1917, this recent decade of home video has certainly been
a great one for fans of the Man of a Thousand Faces.
Click here to order from Amazon
