The Blackbird
The Blackbird is a 1926 American silent crime film directed by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney. The screenplay was written by Waldemar Young, based on a story "The Mockingbird" by Tod Browning (which was originally supposed to be the film's title). Cedric Gibbons and Arnold Gillespie handled the set design. Makeup man Cecil Holland also played one of the old men living at the mission. Character actors Eddie Sturgis and Willie Fung appeared in several other Lon Chaney movies during this time period. The film took 31 days to shoot at a cost of $166,000. The tagline was "Lon Chaney in his successor to The Unholy Three". Stills on the internet shows Chaney in his dual role. In April 2012, the film became available on DVD from the Warner Archive collection. Plot A title card introduces the setting as London's Limehouse district, "with its lust, greed and love, a sea of fog, a drama of human faces.” A cheap music hall is overseen by the tough Dan Tate, who also manages a small gang of thieves under the alias "The Blackbird." As a cover, though, Tate also poses as his own deformed and noble twin brother, affectionately known as the "Bishop of Limehouse," who supposedly lives above an adjoining mission for the poor. When police arrive at the mission and accuse The Blackbird of robbery, he offers the alibi that he had been sleeping in his room and goes to get to get his "brother" to confirm his story. While the police hear two apparently different voices talking, Dan changes clothes and contorts his body, with his arms and legs at extreme angles, then making his way down the stairs with a crutch as The Bishop, verifying The Blackbird's alibi. Later at the music hall, a "slumming" group of upper-class Londoners arrives, led by the apparently wealthy and respectable Bertram P. Glade, who is really a thief known to Dan and others as "West End Bertie." At the same time, Polly, Dan's former wife, returns to the music hall after a long absence, apparently to Dan's displeasure. Both Dan and Bertie are attracted to Fifi Lorraine, a puppeteer and dancer performing on the stage. She in turn is attracted to the diamond choker worn by a woman in Bertie's group. Bertie arranges to have his group robbed by his own men and takes the choker and other jewelry he received to his home, where he is confronted by The Blackbird, who insists that he is owed a portion of Bertie's haul. The two settle on a coin toss to decide who will get the choker, which Dan wins. The next night, however, Bertie succeeds in taking Fifi home after her performance despite Dan's efforts to woo her. In the meantime, Polly approaches her ex-husband, trying to appeal to the better side that she sees in him. Bertie and Fifi fall in love with each other and go to The Bishop to ask him to perform their marriage. In his