Where East Is East

Many of Chaney's films had borderline verboten relationships, but this time the father/daughter bond is displayed in a way that is, in my mind anyway, a bit too "adult". At first, I thought the daughter was the wife! The mother character is a real (insert nasty word here), but every performance lacks real depth and emotion. Even Chaney seemed to be holding back. The story itself is textbook. If you just plain want to watch a late silent drama, then by all means watch this one, but it is far from the best of Lon Chaney's films. I'd like to know who designed the eye makeup for the actress who played the wife... the whole time I tried to figure out if the was really Asian or not!

"Where East is East" is another entertaining and somewhat disturbing film from Director Tod Browning and Lon Chaney, this one set in Asia. Chaney plays a wild animal trainer whose daughter (Lupe Vélez) falls in love with a young man (Lloyd Hughes). After some initial reluctance, Chaney supports their intended marriage, but then trouble comes in the form of Madame de Sylva (Estelle Taylor), an Asian seductress. As she moves in on Hughes, we find out she's actually Chaney's old wife and Vélez's mother, who abandoned them long ago. A disturbing love triangle is thus formed between a young man and a mother and her daughter. Chaney snarls and is and tries to protect his daughter, compelling as always, but it's the women who steal this show. Vélez is a bundle of energy and plays her part with a touching innocence and charm, and Taylor absolutely lights up the screen from the moment she appears – her face and hair are just stunning. The two of them and a macabre (if a bit contrived) ending easily make this a film worth watching.

Some notes of interest in the personal lives of the cast: Chaney would sadly die just one year later, and Vélez and Taylor would become such close friends that it would be Taylor at Vélez's side the night she committed suicide 15 years later.

Also, some notes on the subject of race, always a lightning rod in watching these old films: It's disappointing that none of the principal Asian roles are played by Asians, Asian countries and cultures are muddled together, and Asian characters are shown butchering basic grammar even when they should be speaking in their native languages to one another. On the other hand, Browning doesn't play to other stereotypes, wisely doesn't attempt to make Taylor or Vélez look "more Asian" with garish make-up, knowing it would be ridiculous (see Renee Adoree in 1927's Mr. Wu, among others), and also includes three lines in correct Chinese, as opposed to putting up a hodgepodge of nonsensical characters. (And interestingly enough, he doesn't even translate those lines into English.) Not bad, especially for 1929.

This is a nice little silent film - years ago TCM UK showed a 1930's re-issue print with ridiculous sound effects over an energetic orchestra at 63 minutes long that I taped. Lon Chaney only had 2 more films to make before his death the following year, while Lupe Velez had more than 30 to go before her strange death in 1944, here the pair played a rather close father and daughter (Tiger and Toyo) in steamy pre-chopper Vietnam.

The storyline's been completely given away in a previous post, all I would add is that this film is most definitely worth watching if only to gawp at Estelle Taylor playing Madame De Sylva, Toyo's prodigal mother. She was light-years more alluring than Velez in this mainly owing to her incredible eye make-up and hair style, but the daughter didn't seem to mind being overshadowed at all. And her boyfriend Booby was torn - what was there to choose?! Throughout the ensuing emotional roller-coaster Chaney snarls and generally lives up to his name, but unfortunately is guilty of a heavily contrived heinous crime against his immoral ex-wife and by the end has to pay the censor's price - literally in the last second.

All in all not fantastic, but with a realistic atmosphere generated by some intelligent photography and the usual high standard of scenic detail from Cedric Gibbons it's always a pleasant hour-filler for me.

WHERE EAST IS EAST is an enjoyable if fairly contrived adventure saga: Chaney is a scarred trapper of wild animals, and the very first scene shows him capturing a tiger for use in a circus. Chaney adores his young daughter (Lupe Velez) and she certainly returns his affections – indeed, relentlessly so, resulting in a somewhat overbearing performance! Lloyd Hughes is her naïve boyfriend, whose father conveniently owns a circus.

Gradually, we learn that Velez's mother had left her and Chaney when still a baby. He later meets up with her on a boat, and we realize that she is nothing but a vamp who has already set her eyes on a new patsy – Lloyd Hughes! Estelle Taylor's performance rivals Chaney's here (not to mention Velez for sex appeal) – though her character is irritatingly one-note, and is unfortunately saddled with some godawful lines of cornball romanticism! Taylor is accompanied by an enigmatic servant-woman who, for some unknown reason, constantly betrays her mistresses' moves to Chaney: she reminded me of Judith Anderson in Hitchcock's REBECCA (1940), and I cracked up a couple of times watching her creep up on Chaney, give him the lowdown on Taylor's seduction of Hughes, and vanish immediately afterwards – without giving Chaney barely a chance to register what she just said!

Tod Browning's hand is not much in evidence throughout the film and, while Chaney is quite good in what he has to do, the material on offer is somewhat below-par here. If anything, from his performances in this film and THE UNKNOWN (1927), we almost feel certain there's nobody who can illustrate a character's utter disgust and contempt (without bothering to cover it up in the face of his enemies!) like Chaney does!! The finale is a typical Browning/Chaney eccentricity, however: when Taylor is certain to take away her daughter's boyfriend for good, Chaney lets loose an ape – and which also, conveniently, hates Taylor's guts (!) – from one of the cages in his yard. It climbs up to Taylor's room and kills her in some vicious manner we can only imagine – as Browning typically shies away from showing us anything but, perhaps, understandably so in this case. Chaney almost regrets having done this, and is himself wounded struggling with the gorilla.

Tiger Haynes (Lon Chaney) is a wild animal trapper in the jungles of Laos. He returns home to find his beloved daughter Toyo Haynes (Lupe Velez) in love with Bobby Bailey (Lloyd Hughes). He's the son of a powerful circus owner and one of Tiger's best customers.

This is a late silent film. Sound is taking over and this one was released with a soundtrack. This movie has lots of animals and I'm sure that a circus was involved in some ways. It has some exotic feel, but the main characters are white. If one is willing to overlook the obsolescence, this is a good silent film. Silent era icon Lon Chaney would die a year later. He has nice scarred facial makeup and great physical acting.