White Tiger

I love silent films. Some of the best pictures ever made hail from the silent era, and even setting aside the classics, such works are a critical part of our cultural heritage that deserve to be appreciated and remembered. Not all such early titles are made equally, however. The chief trouble that I have with this one is its very weak start to the narrative; the first several minutes are written so poorly, and executed so messily, that it's a struggle to even take at face value. Sadly, much the same glaring issue rears its head again at the most inopportune time, during major revelations for the characters, at about T-12 minutes, that complement those earliest beats. Thankfully the storytelling is more mindful for the majority of the length (also recovering for the very end), with a disparity that only highlights how shoddy its most deficient points are - yet still it's distinctly uneven. The plot and its development, and the scene writing, occasionally proceed with an oversimplified brusqueness that not only in some measure quashes some of the desired tactfulness and subtlety, but also strips away connective tissue such that the screenplay at times feels like a mere outline, and not a finished product. Tod Browning's esteemed career in film-making was far better than not, though not flawless, and co-writer Charles Kenyon has plentiful credits to his name, but among their contributions to cinema I'm not fully convinced that 'White tiger' was a faultless gem in anyone's crown.

Mind you, while it has problems that dampen one's first and last impressions, it's hardly all bad. More than not, in fact, it's quite well done. It's in the details of the writing that the title is thusly troubled, but as the story advances, Browning and Kenyon do find their feet over time. The broad strokes of the tale are just fine, worthwhile and enjoyable despite familiar underpinnings in early cinema of crime, and people who are led into it. Meanwhile, the mechanical chess player is a novelty that helps a recognizable narrative thrust to feel a little more fresh. The production design and art direction are quite lovely, as is the costume design, and hair and makeup work. While surviving prints weren't wholly pristine before being digitally preserved, still there's sufficient quality in the image to admire the work that went into the picture from behind the scenes. And I should say in front of the camera, too, as the cast give solid performances - Matt Moore, Wallace Beery, Raymond Griffith, and especially Browning regular Priscilla Dean. It's a pleasure just to watch them all ply their trade. While the writing is imperfect, the man's direction isn't in question, and neither is the cinematography.

It feels strange to say for a silent movie, but there are times in the second half when 'White tiger' seems to lag a little bit, times when the compelling drama and excitement temporarily taper off. During such times the weaknesses in the writing again become more evident, and hearty suspension of disbelief is required to accept the tale as it presents. This is unfortunate, for when the feature is at its best it's reliably engaging and entertaining, and the strengths of everyone's contributions are apparent. Had the screenplay been tightened the end result would have been still more robust - why, if even just the early portions of the narrative weren't so thin, and specifically story beats revolving around the characters' identities and relationships, then this would have surely been elevated to another level. For all that, however, warts and all, the movie succeeds more than it doesn't. The crew's work, and the cast's, pair with technical craft to bolster the sturdier aspects of the writing, mostly outweighing the deficiencies. All things considered this might not be a must-see, and it won't do anything to change the minds of anyone who has a hard time engaging with early cinema. When all is said and done, however, 'White tiger' remains a classic, enjoyable early feature that's worth exploring, just so long as one is willing to abide its imperfections.

This silent drama marked the ninth and last collaboration between director Tod Browning, best remembered for such macabre classics as The Unknown and Freaks, and actress Priscilla Dean, who is hardly remembered at all. Miss Dean was quite the star in her day, and was even called the Queen of the Universal Lot in the early 1920s, but nowadays the only attention she receives is due largely to ongoing interest in some of her colleagues. Beginning in 1918 she and Browning collaborated on a series of crime melodramas, including Outside the Law (1920), a box office sensation that also featured Lon Chaney in a dual role and boosted his career considerably. Chaney would make some of his best known films with Browning in subsequent years, and although their work is generally assigned to the horror genre most of their movies belong to a niche category Browning essentially invented, and certainly favored throughout his career: "caper" flicks involving small-time criminals connected to the lower rungs of show business: circuses, carnivals, wax museums, etc.

White Tiger is one of these sagas, and although Chaney is not present -- unfortunately! -- Priscilla Dean plays opposite two interesting co-stars: Wallace Beery, who all but cornered the market in unsympathetic character roles during the silent era, and Raymond Griffith, who at this time had not yet launched his own series of wry, witty light comedies. The story concerns a trio of crooks who manage to get themselves invited into the homes of wealthy suckers by offering an unusual gimmick: a mechanical chess player that can challenge any human player and win. The automaton is, of course, bogus, operated by Griffith concealed within. Meanwhile, Beery impersonates a count (most unconvincingly) and passes off Dean as his daughter. After a demonstration of the machine, Griffith slips out and steals valuables, which are then hidden inside the robot chess player. If the plot sounds a wee bit far-fetched, it is. Perhaps this would have worked better as a comedy, but the actors play it straight and little that happens is believable, even "Hollywood" believable.

Eventually the crooks wind up in a remote cabin with their loot and struggle with a growing sense of paranoia regarding each other's intentions. (Browning would re-use this motif with his trio of crooks in The Unholy Three a couple of years later.) The true nature of the relationship between the three characters is ultimately revealed, and there is a modicum of violence before matters are resolved. The last section of the film suffers from "cabin fever" in the most literal sense of the phrase: we're supposed to be gripped by suspense as tensions rise between the three crooks, but instead things get draggy, and viewers could be forgiven for wishing they'd wrap up the story a little faster.

The print of White Tiger I've seen is somewhat abridged, but even granting the filmmakers leeway where missing footage is concerned the movie is not entirely coherent and, in the end, not very satisfying. (To put it another way, even if a pristine camera negative of the original release print were to be miraculously discovered, I doubt it would improve matters much, though I'd be happy to be proved wrong about that.) The biggest problem is a scenario damaged by too many credibility stretches and unmotivated actions. As mentioned earlier, this was the ninth crime drama Browning made with Priscilla Dean, and it would be fair to suggest that the formula was wearing thin by this point. Additionally, according to the biography of Browning by David J. Skaal and Elias Savada, at the time this film was made the writer/director was overwhelmed by personal difficulties and drinking heavily, which may explain the movie's shortcomings: the enterprise bears an unmistakable air of fatigue. Apparently the version Browning turned in to his bosses was a mess, and Universal shelved the film for over a year after its completion. Finally, anonymous studios hands were assigned to salvage the project with a fresh edit and newly written title cards. At this late date it's impossible to tell whether the film's deficiencies were present from the beginning or are the result of nitrate decomposition in surviving prints over the years, but in any case the film received poor reviews, and was not a success upon its release in 1923. Subsequently, the major players went their separate ways. Raymond Griffith became a star of sophisticated comedies of the late silent era; Wallace Beery became a character star of the '30s and '40s; and Tod Browning managed to pull himself together and produce the macabre classics for which he is remembered.

As for Priscilla Dean, her career went into a decline not long after White Tiger was released. By 1927 she was appearing in two-reel comedies under Hal Roach's "All-Star" banner, alongside such fellow fading names as Mabel Normand and Theda Bara. One of Dean's comedies, Slipping Wives, featured Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in one of their early appearances together, which serves to underscore the irony that the one-time Queen of the Universal Lot is today remembered primarily for the company she kept.

This film's title (a contrived reference to the criminal instinct) is so arbitrary, I suspect that someone in Universal's front office ordered Tod Browning to make a movie called 'White Tiger' but didn't care about its actual content.

SPOILERS COMING. We get several of the usual Tod Browning elements here: a grotesque scam, urban criminals who hide out in the woods, stolen jewels concealed in an unprepossessing object, and the convenient regeneration of a lifelong criminal.

The story opens in a London slum, resembling the one in 'The Blackbird', but with a prologue structurally similar to the one in 'West of Zanzibar'. Roy and Sylvia Donovan are the young children of a criminal who has just been shopped to Scotland Yard by his henchman Hawkes (Wallace Beery). As the peelers burst in, Hawkes flees with little Sylvia, leaving boy Roy to his own devices as the children's father is killed.

Fade in fifteen years later at 'a famous wax musee (sic) in London' (I wonder which one). The grown-up Roy (played by Raymond Griffith) is now working inside a mechanical chess-playing device, clearly inspired by the (equally fraudulent) automaton which Johann Nepomuk Maelzel exhibited in Europe and America in the 1830s, and which was rumbled in an 1836 essay by Edgar Allan Poe (whom Raymond Griffith resembled facially). Working a scam in the same layout is Sylvia (Priscilla Dean), whom Hawkes has raised as a pickpocket. (In the film's main story following the prologue, Beery is made 15 years older with an impressive makeup job, but his character has not gained any weight.)

Annoyingly and contrivedly, the Donovan siblings have each believed the other to be killed in the police raid. Now they meet -- the audience are aware of their relationship -- yet fail to recognise each other, although Roy feels a 'brotherly' affection for this woman.

The whole gang -- Griffith, Dean, Beery, the mechanical chess-player, Uncle Tom Cobley and all -- hightail it to a very unconvincing New York City. Roy seems to recognise Hawkes as the man who shopped his father, but bides his time. After they pull their big heist, they scarper for a convenient cabin in the woods like the crooks in 'The Unholy Three'. The three lead characters in this movie -- all played by American actors -- are lower-class Londoners who pass themselves off in New York as Italian nobility. It's fortunate that this is a silent movie, so that we're spared what surely would have been ludicrous attempts at double-decker accents. (And anyway, Raymond Griffith had a throat ailment which would end his acting career in talking pictures.) It's deeply annoying that the characters played by Dean and Griffith spend so much time together, in such close quarters, before realising they're brother and sister.

SPOILERS NOW. As this is a Tod Browning film, it's no surprise that a man and woman who are lifelong criminals -- Griffith and Dean, this time round -- experience a total and sincere reformation, and (very contrivedly, but also as usual for Browning) they receive a full pardon from the forces of the law. As in 'The Blackbird', this film strongly implies that a well-bred patrician (in this case, Matt Moore's top-hatted stranger) is innately superior to people of plebeian birth.

I watched this Tod Browning film with a strong sense of deja vu, as so many of its elements strongly echo so many other Browning films. One point in this film's favour is that it has a bit more comedy relief than usual for Browning, including a couple of wisecracking inter-titles. I'll rate 'White Tiger' 7 out of 10, but I wouldn't recommend it as anyone's first introduction to Tod Browning's bizarre world.

"White Tiger" (1923) stars Priscilla Dean, Raymond Griffith, Matt Moore, Wallace Beery, and a few others, but it is the fact that it is directed by Tod Browning that makes it supposed to have the added umph. The acting is flawless. The story, one of murder, deception, theft, greed - the typical brew of Browning, plus his added tricks - is not a bad one. Unfortunately, though this is worth two stars out of four, it's worth no more. Why? Browning must have been bored. He directs this thing with precision and he gets the performers to perform. But still, it just doesn't go anywhere...and almost literally. Scenes remain stagnant, and stagnant people in the scenes have little blocking. The story just doesn't seem to be moving, even when it is. The best thing about the film... The scenes where the thieves all begin to distrust each other, much like the later - and much better film! - "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre". There's always a reason to watch a Browning film. Priscilla Dean was at the top of her game during this period. One knows, or suspects, that Beery isn't going to be a father figure or any kind of angel during this period of his career. And - he has talent. Raymond Griffith playing a nasty? Well, he's good, if not a tad wormy in this. Matt Moore and his part may be the weakest link. The story begins with Beery killing Mike Donovan, father of Dean and Griffith. Then Beery takes Dean and raises her to be a thief. Griffith has run away and grown up somewhere else. He's now a "chess player" - that is, he is inside a supposed mechanical chess board against which people play - though they don't know Griffith's inside playing the game. He seems to always win - of course. COINCIDENTALLY - and there's enough coincidence in this film to flabbergast even the most indulgent - all these people meet up again and pull off a jewel theft - Beery and Dean not knowing Griffith is her brother, nor he knowing Dean's his sister. Moore all the while is the patsy, though it's his family's home they've robbed.

Years ago I watched this on an old VHS tape. This new release on a 4K restoration disc of "Drifting" and another Dean fragment, "The Exquisite Thief", is also the weak link of the three on the disc. It's better seemingly than the old VHS tape, but it's filled with scratches and artifacts and contrast of lighting that isn't up to original snuff by any means. I won't need to re-visit this one again.

Fortunately this 1923 Universal film by Tod Browning survives for us to view and evaluate. Made right after Browning's OUTSIDE THE LAW this film has all the feel of "Outside the Law" even to the point of looking like it re-uses some of the "Outsidethe Law" sets. Browning's stars in this film are perhaps his favorite muse, Priscilla Dean who appeared in "Outside the Law" and many other Browning films, Wallace Beery, Raymond Griffith and Matt Moore. Even the same cameraman William Fildew is on hand. If you're familiar with Tod Browning's films you'll recognize that he's treading on territory that he would later use at MGM in such films as THE UNHOLY THREE, THE MYSTIC and THE SHOW. In fact Raymond Griffith has a mustache and is dressed wearing a familiar striped shirt almost identical to John Gilbert's in 1927's "The Show". So one gets the feeling that Browning is never really finished saying what he wants to say where as many of his films, such as "White Tiger", keep returning to the same theme. Sources state that "White Tiger" was made in 1921 but not edited and released until 1923 which is probably why it bears such a striking resemblance to "Outside the Law". As in "Outside the Law" and the later "Unholy Three", the story in "White Tiger" has three to four criminals on the run after a jewel robbery, held up in a claustrophobic environment, each having to deal with the other's foibles. In "Outside the Law" it was an apartment on Nob Hill in San Francisco and in "White Tiger" it's a log cabin in western New York. The sense of mistrust amongst the criminals is just as tense as it is in both the 1925 "The Unholy Three" and it's 1930 sound remake.