The ninth collaboration between Lon Chaney and director Tod Browning, West of Zanzibar (1928) is probably the most successful of their films together along with The Unknown. Adapted from a popular stage play, this tale of revenge and debasement is disturbing, even by current standards, and is not recommended for timid viewers. MGM even remade it in 1932 under its original stage title, Kongo with Walter Huston reprising his Broadway role.

West of Zanzibar opens on a picture of domestic bliss. Phroso (Chaney), an English music hall magician, is completely devoted to his wife, Anna (Jacqueline Hart). But appearances are deceiving and Anna soon abandons Phroso for her lover, Crane (Lionel Barrymore), an ivory trader. When Phroso goes to confront Crane, he is permanently crippled in a fight with his rival. A year later, Anna, with her baby daughter Maizie, attempts to return to Phroso but dies before she can reach him. Phroso adopts Maizie under the assumption that she was fathered by Crane and relocates to the jungles of Africa where he proceeds to raise her in a harsh and degrading environment among superstitious natives. When Maizie reaches the age of eighteen, Phroso plots his final act of revenge and summons Crane to their isolated outpost under false pretenses.

Considering the sensationalistic aspects of the story, it's no surprise that some sequences didn't make the final cut of West of Zanzibar. For one thing, the scene where Phroso makes an appearance as a "duck man" at a side show was deleted. Tod Browning would later use this bizarre costume for the horrific climax to Freaks where Olga Baclanova is transformed into the "duck woman." Another sequence that didn't get pass the censors is one where Phroso crawls into a bar on his wheeled platform, begging for handouts, and is tossed through a plate glass window into the street.

In case you were wondering, West of Zanzibar was not filmed on location in Africa but on the Culver City lot. Phroso's jungle compound was constructed around the studio water tank and numerous steam pipes were utilized to keep the vast array of tropical plants on the set from wilting in the dry California climate. Due to the studio lights, the rising summer temperatures, and the steam from the pipes, the set was often as humid as a turkish bath and extremely uncomfortable for the cast and crew members.

Director: Tod Browning
Producer: Irving G. Thalberg
Screenplay: Elliott Clawson (based on the play Kongo by Charles de Vonde & Kilbourn Gordon
Cinematography: Percy Hilburn
Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons
Cast: Lon Chaney (Phroso), Lionel Barrymore (Crane), Warner Baxter (Doc), Mary Nolan (Maizie), Jacqueline Daly (Anna), Roscoe Ward (Tiny).
BW-65m.

by Jeff Stafford