A Blind Bargain
| A Blind Bargain | |
|---|---|
Wallace Beery (background) and Lon Chaney, on the original, 1922 theatrical poster
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| Directed by | Wallace Worsley |
| Produced by | Samuel Goldwyn |
| Written by | J.G. Hawks |
| Based on |
The Octave of Claudius by Barry Pain |
| Starring |
Lon Chaney Raymond McKee Jacqueline Logan Wallace Beery (uncredited) |
| Music by | J. Bercovitch (cue sheet) |
| Cinematography | Norbert Brodine |
| Edited by | Paul Bern |
| Distributed by | Goldwyn Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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57 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
A Blind Bargain is a 1922 American silent horror film starring Lon Chaney and Raymond McKee, released through Goldwyn Pictures. The film was directed by Wallace Worsley and is based on Barry Pain's 1897 novel, The Octave of Claudius. The film, which features Wallace Beery in an unbilled cameo as an ape-man, is now considered lost.
The film is a contemporary (1920s, though the book was published in 1897) picture that takes place in New York City. The story involves a mad scientist who turns circumstances on a young man to do his bidding.
Robert Sandell (Raymond McKee), despondent over his bad luck as a writer and his mother's declining health, attacks and attempts to rob a theatergoer, Dr. Lamb (Lon Chaney), a sinister, fanatical physician living in the suburbs of New York. Lamb takes the boy to his home, learns his story, and agrees to perform an operation on Mrs. Sandell (Virginia True Boardman) on one consideration – that Robert shall, at the end of eight days, deliver himself to the doctor to do with as he will, for experimental purposes. Frantic with worry over his dying mother's condition, Robert agrees.
Mother and son take up their residence in the Lamb home, where Robert is closely watched, not only by the doctor, but by his wife (Fontaine La Rue) and a grotesque hunchback (Lon Chaney, in a dual role), whom Robert learns afterwards is the result of one of the doctor's experiments.
Dr. Lamb, anxious to keep his hold on Robert, not only gives him spending money, but assists him in having his book published through Wytcherly, head of a publishing company. Robert meets Wytcherly's daughter Angela (Jacqueline Logan) and promptly falls in love.
In the meantime, the days are slipping by to the time of the experiment. Robert has been warned by Mrs. Lamb and the hunchback that great danger threatens him. At dawn, they show him as a warning a mysterious underground vault in which is a complete operating room and a tunnel of cages in which are strange prisoners – previously failed experiments of Lamb's. In agony and fear, Robert goes to the physician and tries to buy himself out of the bargain , for his book has been published and he is now a successful writer. There is yet one day before the time limit is up, but the doctor, realizing his victim may try to escape, seizes him and straps him to the operating table. He is rescued by Mrs. Lamb, the hunchback releases a cage door, and the doctor is himself brought to a horrible end at the hands of an ape-man wrecked mentally by the doctor's experiments.
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Wikipedia