The Shadow of Silk Lennox

This early crime film starring Lon Chaney Jr. isn't too good. It's about a gangster who owns a nightclub and uses this as an alibi for the crimes he commits. It's a thoroughly uninspired movie, with little to recommend it. It's an early Chaney performance, so for his fans it at least provides an early glimpse of the man in action. Along with another early Chaney film from the same time, Scream in the Night, it doesn't offer too much though. He wasn't a star name at the time so he had to star in these old Poverty Row movies to help get his career moving I guess. The most distinctive thing about this production was probably the songs and the dance routines, which while not exactly special they did offer something different at least.

Shadow of Silk Lennox, The (1935)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Static gangster picture has Lon Chaney, Jr. leading a gang but his latest crime might just get him pinched even though he's trying to look legit by running a nightclub. This film has an ultra low-budget and it doesn't help matters that the main star was just getting his acting chops together and comes off pretty badly. The gunfights are all rather lame and boring and the musical numbers are even worse. For Chaney fans only.

You can find this film through various public domain labels.

Silk Lennox runs a nightclub which fronts for his illegal gangster activities. You can probably fill in the blanks because there's not much else to say, as this picture fails on almost every level. Lon Chaney,Jr. is the only professional connected with this amateurish production and seems trapped - he must have needed the money to appear in this, a picture in which he otherwise would not have been caught dead (no pun intended). And I'll bet he wished he could have turned into a werewolf.

The script is awful, the direction and editing are terrible and the acting is unbelievably bad. The only reason I give it such a high rating is for the musical numbers (remember, it's a night club), which are not at all bad and are surprisingly tuneful. The rest is predictable and uninteresting.

If it comes on TV, miss it. If it turns up in your DVD collection, skip it.

Lon Chaney Jr. Is John Arthur 'Silk' Lennox. He's a night club owner, and the head of a vicious gang of criminals who enjoy armed robbery, and rubbing out people who get in their way more. Dean Benton is the singer in his night club. Marie Burton is the chick singer and dancer. They know Chaney is a vicious criminal and his organization is worse, but they're just a couple of kids in love.

Chaney is pretty smart, working up great alibis for his jobs, but the police know he's done them, even though eye witnesses are too scare to identify him. But the G-Men are in town, and they're clamping down. Chaney needs a safecracker, and fortunately he's met Jack Mulhall while waiting to be sprung, and Mulhall is so good that he escaped from jail, and offers to kill Benton.

Unfortunately for the audience, there isn't much more in this movie, and we know that with the newly enforced Production Code and a Poverty Row producer the 60-minute run time isn't going to offer much in the way of excellence. With Eddie Gribbon, Theodore Lorch, and Hal Taliaferro.

Veteran screenwriter Oliver Drake tells us, in his autobiography, that he was asked by producer Ray Kirkwood to take a break from writing screenplays for Kirkwood's series of Bill Cody westerns, and to generate some stories for a series starring Creighton Chaney, to be henceforth billed as Lon Chaney, Jr. Mr. Drake acquiesced, but was interrupted by a case of influenza. Upon his recovery, he found that others were busily writing the Chaney stories, but only two films were produced before Kirkwood's career as a producer concluded, "The Shadow of Silk Lennox" being one of them.

It is a leisurely-paced feature, with Kirkwood himself credited as director - but Jack Nelson, veteran director and actor, is usually credited as co-director, though neither gentleman succeeded in injecting much movement into the proceedings. Lon Chaney, Jr. Performs well in a decidedly unsympathetic role, while veteran Jack Mulhall provides good support. Others in the cast have little to work with in this tale of a villainous night club proprietor who has succeeded in avoiding prosecution for his activities as a gangster. Dean Benton provides some pleasant songs. Specialty dancer/actress Marie Burton - niece of actor/director Lowell Sherman - is seen here as a night club entertainer.

As part of a proposed series starring Chaney, the script for this one does not provide the lead character with either an appealing role or an uplifting denouement.