Scary classics from the silent era

This month marks the 80th anniversary of the premiere of “The Jazz Singer,” the Al Jolson vehicle with music and a few lines of dialogue that ushered in the sound era. Ironically, “The Jazz Singer” arrived at a time when silent films were at their apex.

The 1920s saw the release of such classics as “The Big Parade,” “Greed,” “The Wind” and “The Scarlet Letter.” Cinematography, production design and editing were top-notch; the directorial talent, including King Vidor, Ernst Lubitsch and F.W. Murnau, were masters at their craft; and such stars as Gloria Swanson, Lillian Gish, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Rudolph Valentino and Lon Chaney didn’t need dialogue to express their emotions.

Kino’s spine-tingling new set, “American Silent Horror Collection,” debuting Tuesday on DVD, features four chillers that beautifully illustrate the skill and complexity of silent cinema.

The 1920 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is considered by historians as one of the first great American horror films. John Barrymore, Drew’s grandfather, caused quite the sensation as the man with the dual personalities. Up until that time, Barrymore had been known primarily as a stage actor, but his complex turn transformed him into a movie star. What was so startling about his performance is that when Jekyll first transforms into the hideous Mr. Hyde, Barrymore made the transition without makeup, he simply distorted his face -- makeup and other prosthetics were then applied to complete the transformation.

Barrymore, who was so astonishingly handsome that he was nicknamed the Great Profile, plays Dr. Jekyll as a noble, serious young doctor whose “baser” instincts are awakened when his fiancée’s father takes him to a music hall where he’s kissed by a floozy music hall performer. His Mr. Hyde is horrifying, especially in the scene in which Jekyll is having a fierce verbal argument with his fiancée’s father, turns into his vicious alter ego and beats the man senseless.

The disc includes a clip from a competing 1920 version of the tale starring Sheldon Lewis, who doesn’t hold a candle to Barrymore’s savage brilliance.

Barrymore suffered a physical and nervous collapse after making the film because he was shooting the movie while appearing on Broadway in “Richard III,” and readying his next Broadway production, “Hamlet.”

“The Penalty,” also from 1920, is one of Chaney’s first triumphs. He’s riveting in this eerie tale of a legless criminal mastermind who seeks revenge upon the doctor who chopped his legs off unnecessarily as a child. To play his character of Blizzard, Chaney strapped his ankles to his hips and inserted his knees into leather stumps.

The film, directed by Wallace Worsley, is surprisingly gritty for 1920 -- there’s even a brief nude scene of an artist’s female model -- and Chaney goes full out playing the unscrupulous madman who is not above murdering his mistresses if they don’t operate the pedals of his piano correctly while he plays.

During the 1920s, Hollywood studios hired several European directors, especially those in the German Expressionism movement, including Murnau, who went to Fox, and Paul Leni, who came to Universal. Leni directed 1927’s “The Cat and the Canary,” a scrumptiously fun “old dark house” thriller in which the relatives of an eccentric recluse meet at his mansion at the stroke of midnight 20 years after his demise for the reading of the will. Of course, they have to spend the night in the creepy mansion that is complete with hidden passageways, dark hallways and even a madman who has escaped from a local insane asylum. Laura Le Plante stars.

Leni also directed 1928’s lavish, highly unusual love story “The Man Who Laughs,” based on the novel by Victor Hugo. Three years in the making at a budget of $1 million, “Man” stars the great German actor Conrad Veidt (“Casablanca”) as a clown who had a permanent smile carved on his face as a child by the king, because the boy’s father was the monarch’s political enemy. Mary Philbin (“The Phantom of the Opera”) stars as the blind woman he loves.

Chaney had planned to star in “Man” before later withdrawing from the project. But it’s hard to believe that even Chaney could have matched Veidt’s heartbreaking performance.

On a historical note, Veidt’s jack-o-lantern grin was the design inspiration for Batman’s nemesis the Joker.

Leni made four films at Universal before dying of blood poisoning in 1929.

--

susan.king@latimes.com