Todd Browning - Dead Feet Congo law requires a wife or daughter to follow a deceased man. This is a terrible rite, a terrible dance of death. It will be shown twice in this tape - without details, but the designation of the contours here makes a much more eerie impression. The flames of fires and ashes are much more oppressive than the affected flesh (which modern filmmakers like to broadcast).
Moreover, Todd Browning so exquisitely shows everything that the voltage line in the tape moves from one fire to the second. Changing the director of the action in mosaic order would have turned out to be a much more interesting puzzle, but in those years such tricks were not particularly welcomed by the public.
But the master of filmmaking came out another story about the burning revenge. At the very beginning, a tragedy occurs - the wife of the magician decides to run away with a lover, and when clarifying the relationship, the latter manages to seriously injure the unfortunate man. Now the hero of Lon Cheney is forever destined for the sad existence of a disabled person who moves with the help of his hands. Revenge becomes his primary goal. In addition, he soon sees the corpse of his dead wife.
For many years, the main character will prepare a retaliatory strike. To do this, he will move after the offender to Africa and do many more things. The sinister plot will include revenge on the man’s daughter. It is here, in the true retrospection of Konrad’s Heart of Darkness, that the tragic denouement will unfold. To my taste, Browning simply gave the story a civilizational curtsey - the presence of native rites directs us almost to Sophocles. And the ornate plot about revenge cannot but give similarities to “King Oedipus” and “Medea”.
However, the tone here will be Lon Cheney. It's going to be very different. At first, he will appear quite a decent and confident gentleman, almost Tom Cruise. Then, his appearance will change dramatically - he will look like Vladimir Posner. Well, closer to the final, when the sinister plan will increasingly begin to be realized, Cheney will almost be a copy of Humphrey Bogart. Cynical and tense. It's nice that there was no special makeup there - a true acting job. Indeed, in his hero, nicknamed “Dead Feet”, everything is woven of contradictions, something from the Abyss, but much from a person.
So, the emotional charge of the film runs rapidly between Lon Cheney, a terrible rite and occasionally flickering natives. Africans are given almost the smallest role in this tape. But for all roles, extremely athletic guys are selected, who demonstrate the primitive power and triumph of the brute force with their own appearance. The terrible rites for them are but a tribute to the Law, the importance of which they cannot dispute. Thus, the wild delusions of the Aborigines correlate with the mad revenge of the protagonist, giving the tape an even darker look.
8 out of 10