The beginning of the film is really hard to take seriously. Lionel Barrymore was miscast in his role as the lover. It is hard to believe that someone as beautiful as Jacqueline Gadsdon could fall in love with him in preference to Lon Chaney. They really should have cast someone younger and more handsome. That being said the story is rather sad... especially when Lon Chaney realizes he has made a big mistake... and has been wrong all along in his assumptions. He plays his part well and you can't help feel sorry for him. Mary Nolan is beautiful and plays her part well. Warner Baxter looks rather silly/crazy when he "goes native" and starts dancing but otherwise plays his part well. The Synchronized Score with music and sound effects is pleasing and quite effective and sets the spooky/dark mood effectively.

WHEN ONE WANTED to take an already frightening story and turn it into an even more disturbing shocker, there are two steps that would insure success. First, cast Lon Chaney in the Lead. Secondly, have Todd Browning direct. Fortunately for MGM, in 1925, WEST OF ZANZIBAR had both going for them.AS MANY OF the dramas of the period did, this film had a Show Business setting. In this case, we have Stage Magician, Professor Phroso (Lon Chaney), suffers the loss of his spouse, Anna (Jacqueline Gadsden)to her lover, Crane (Lionel Barrymore). The two men quarrel and fight, where Phroso suffers a severe fall; leaving his legs paralyzed and "dead." YEARS LATER, BOTH men are in Darkest Africa, where Phroso operates a trading outpost; where he uses his skills at prestidigitation to cheat Natives out of ivory. Eventually, Mazie (Mary Nolan) daughter of the now deceased Anna, comes under Phroso/"dead Legs" control and is left to wallow in the worst den of debauchery in Zanzibar.AFTER DIRECTLY CONFRONTING Crane, "Dead Legs"/Proso discovers that Mazie is after all his daughter. A sudden uprising by the African Natives, who have been cheated for so many years in the "Dead Legs" trading post, threatens to kill the Daughter and Proso sacrifices his own life; allowing Mazie to escape with young 'Doc' (Warner Baxter).OUR SYNOPSIS CAN do no justice to the film. With this outstanding "Duo of the Macabre", being Mr. Chaney and Mr. Browning, every scene is saturated with disturbing and frightful implications. DISDAINING THE BLOOD & gore that has come to be synonymous with "Horror", the production team instead creates all of their horror in the mind of the viewer.Please, please take the time to screen this film if you haven't yet done so. If you have, see it again

I feel Lon Chaney was the first extremely great actor to come out of the American film industry. He embodied characters like nobody's business. The fact that he was in this alone got me interested. Overall, the film was worth a watch to see Chaney portray the jaded stage magician turned African warlord. He was just so stone cold throughout the whole thing only to keep the audience guessing what he was actually going to do next. Lionel Barrymore was also a neat addition as the truly heartless villain who hadn't a care in the world, even when his life was at stake. Not as inspired as The Unknown or Phantom of the Opera, but still a worthy addition to the Lon Chaney catalog.

Saturday, December 12, 9:15pm The Castro, San Francisco "Gee, but you're a strange man." A Limehouse magician loses his wife to another man and seeks his revenge on the girl (Mary Nolan) he believes is their child.Based on the Broadway play Kongo, by Chester deVonde, West of Zanzibar (1928) was the sixth of ten films directed by Tod Browning, starring Lon Chaney. Crippled in a fight with his rival, Phroso (Chaney) discovers his dead wife and the child one year later and takes her to a malarial, booze-soaked sub-Saharan hell infested with society's rejects and bloodthirsty cannibals, where the story picks up "eighteen years later." A combination of familiar Chaney themes, West of Zanzibar is noteworthy for the performance of former Ziegfeld Follies star Nolan as Mazie, the ruined girl, and Warner Baxter as Doc, the drunken slob, pulled back from the brink to save her. Lionel Barrymore is sadistically indifferent as the other man, and Chaney delivers a typically earth-shaking emotional performance.Lon Chaney's West of Zanzibar opened at San Francisco's Warfield theatre on Saturday, December 1, 1928 for a one week run. "Rube Wolf and a company of Fanchon and Marco entertainers are featured today in Stairway of Dreams on the stage." The program also featured Fox Movietone Talking News and a Charlie Chase comedy.