Professional magician Phroso (Lon Chaney) is married to his assistant Anna. She is set to leave him for rival Crane (Lionel Barrymore) but she cannot bring herself to tell him. Phroso confronts Crane and gets pushed off a balcony. He becomes a paraplegic. Later, he finds Anna dead in a church with her baby. He vows revenge. It's 18 years later, west of Zanzibar. Phroso rules a small trading outpost using his magic tricks to control the local savages and steal elephant tusks from Crane. He had raised Anna's baby Maizie in the lowest Zanzibar without her ever meeting her father. He sends for her with the promise of finally meeting her father.
I don't understand why Phroso makes the assumption about the baby. That whole premise doesn't make sense. The twist is no twist since it's my assumption from the beginning. It's such a big part of the story and it suffers. Skipping 18 years also raises the question if Phroso had been harassing Crane for all that time. The plot is a bit too convenient and convoluted. All of this does not take into account the way the Africans are portrayed. It is old Hollywood and some leeway must be given. All in all, Lon Chaney's performance is magnetic even if the movie has flaws.
I don't understand why Phroso makes the assumption about the baby. That whole premise doesn't make sense. The twist is no twist since it's my assumption from the beginning. It's such a big part of the story and it suffers. Skipping 18 years also raises the question if Phroso had been harassing Crane for all that time. The plot is a bit too convenient and convoluted. All of this does not take into account the way the Africans are portrayed. It is old Hollywood and some leeway must be given. All in all, Lon Chaney's performance is magnetic even if the movie has flaws.