West of Zanzibar
About West of Zanzibar
The magician Phroso loses the use of his legs when Crane, the ivory trader who is taking Anna away, shoves him over a railing. A year later Anna is dead of hunger in a church, a baby beside her. Phroso swears revenge on Crane and on the child, raises the girl, and eighteen years on rules a jungle post as Dead-Legs Flint. He steals Crane's ivory and has Maizie brought from a Zanzibar dive, telling her she will meet her father, then treating her with hate and turning her to drink. He lures Crane in and says Maizie is Crane's daughter. Crane laughs: Anna never went with him, because she hated him for crippling her husband. Maizie is Phroso's. The locals shoot Crane. Custom says his daughter burns on the pyre. Phroso hides Maizie in a trick coffin and gets her, Doc, and the others to a boat. The people see the trick. A medallion of Phroso's is later pulled from the ashes.
Cast & crew
More about West of Zanzibar
Tod Browning directed and produced with Irving Thalberg. Elliott J. Clawson wrote the screenplay and Joseph Farnham the titles, from the 1926 play Kongo by Charles de Vonde and Kilbourn Gordon. Shot from June 25 to July 31, 1928. The Hays office had barred Kongo, so MGM tried the title South of the Equator, then West of Zanzibar. Lon Chaney plays Phroso. Lionel Barrymore plays Crane. Mary Nolan plays Maizie. Warner Baxter plays Doc. Jacqueline Gadsden, billed as Jane Daly, plays Anna. William Axt wrote the synchronized score and effects. Cedric Gibbons and Richard Day designed the sets. Harry Reynolds edited. Worldwide gross on the books is $921,000.
Themes
Music
William Axt's synchronized score and effects play with the picture. There is no dialogue.
Preservation
A print survives. Some planned or cut passages, including the Human Duck act, are not in it.
Notes
- There is no spoken dialogue. Music and effects were issued on disc and on film.
- Owen Moore was first cast as Doc. Baxter played it.
- Nolan was hired for Maizie because Browning wanted "such sad eyes.
- Walter Huston had played Phroso on stage and played him again in the 1932 film Kongo.
- Stills show Chaney as a Human Duck. Whether that act was in a shot that was cut is not settled.
- The pyre custom is what turns the trick back on Phroso once Crane is dead.
Scenes
- Crane tells him Anna never left, and Maizie is his daughter.
- The coffin trick empties into a skeleton while Maizie is already at the boat.
- His medallion comes out of the pyre ashes.
Influenced by
- The play Kongo by Charles de Vonde and Kilbourn Gordon (1926)
