The Road to Mandalay (partially lost Lon Chaney drama film; 1926)

From The Lost Media Wiki
Revision as of 05:00, 14 March 2023 by BleedTheFreak 23 (talk | contribs) (Created page with "{{InfoboxLost |title=The Road to Mandalay |image=The Road to Mandalay.jpg|200px |imagecaption=Poster for the film. |status=<span style="color:orange;">'''Partially Lost'''</sp...")
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to: navigation, search
The Road to Mandalay.jpg

Poster for the film.

Status: Partially Lost

The Road to Mandalay is an American silent drama film, released on June 28, 1926. The movie was directed by Tod Browning, and starred Lon Chaney and Lois Moran.[1] It was at one point a lost film, but nearly half of the original film has turned up in abridged form.

Plot

A captain is on board ship bound for Mandalay with his wife, who lies ill in her cabin. A storm is raging and the crew is on the brink of mutiny. The woman dies giving birth to a daughter, and the Captain leaves the child with a priest who raises her. Twenty years pass, and the captain is now known as "Singapore Joe," a vile creature with a blind eye who runs a Singapore brothel along with his Chinese associate, English Charlie Wing. A third partner in their shady dealings is "The Admiral," a young man who was once a reputable Englishman. Whenever he is in Mandalay, Joe always visits his daughter. She does not know who her father is, but is repulsed by the one-eyed Joe who frequents her shop. The Admiral wanders into her shop and, after making a crude remark to the girl, he apologizes and they eventually become romantically involved. Joe tells the priest that he is going to take his girl away to start a new life, but the priest warns him that his many sins make a clean break impossible. Joe learns that the girl is to be married, and on the day of the wedding, sneaks into the church, and is shocked to learn that her husband-to-be is The Admiral. Joe prevents the priest from carrying out the ceremony, then his men shanghai The Admiral. The girl suspects Joe and goes to his brothel is search of her fiancé. Charlie Wing lures the girl upstairs and is about to assault her when Joe enters and stops him. The Admiral arrives and attacks Joe, and during the fight the girl grabs a knife and fatally stabs Joe. Joe tells The Admiral to take her far away, and he holds Wing at bay while they escape. The priest arrives in time to see Joe die from his knife wound.[2]

Availability

The film was lost, save for a few fragments of film that had been in the MGM studio vaults, until an abridged version of the film turned up sometimes in the mid 1980's. Originally a 7 reel film, the found version had a run-time only half of the original, though the main story was still intact. The intertitles were also translated into French, causing the archivist who restored the film, Jon Mirsalis, said, "lost something in the translation". He was able to restore the original intertitles from the original MGM cutting continuity, and this version is now the one in the Warner Brothers Classics vaults.

Gallery

Videos

EmbedVideo is missing a required parameter.

See Also

External Links

References

  1. Silentera listing of the film. Retrieved 14 Mar '23
  2. Synopsis from lonchaney.org Retrieved 14 Mar '23