Years Before His Shift to Horror: Tod Browning's Proto-Noir Outside the Law

OUTSIDE THE LAW

(Tod Browning, USA, 

1920, 76 minutes)

Three years before she played a jewel thief in Tod Browning's 1923 White Tiger (which I reviewed here), Priscilla Dean played another burglar in his San Francisco proto-noir Outside the Law. 

Leo McCarey, future director of the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup and other cinema classics, served as assistant director. The results proved so successful that it spawned two remakes, including a 1930 version with Edward G. Robinson. 

Wearing a succession of eye-catching outfits, from a checked dress with chiffon trim to a sleek, black-sequined sheath, Dean plays Molly Madden, aka "Silky Moll," who grew up among the criminal element in Chinatown. 

As the film begins, Chang Lo (E. Alyn Warren, a white actor who frequently played Asian roles), a Confucian-quoting family friend, has convinced her father, "Silent" Madden (Ralph Lewis), to go straight. Unfortunately, local hooligan "Black" Mike Silva (Lon Chaney, star of 10 Browning pictures, including 1927's The Unknown) frames him for a crime in order to persuade Molly, who was also considering the straight life, to participate in a jewel theft. As an intertitle aptly states, Blackie is "a rat, a vulture, and a snake." 

To no discernible aesthetic purpose, Chaney also plays Lo's servant, Ah Wing, an excitable character who merely confirms the actor's reputation as "The Man of a Thousand Faces." 

Considering the authentic Chinese-American performers in the film, like White Tiger actress Anna May Wong (uncredited) as a Lo disciple, the taped-eyelid performances from Warren and Chaney feel more unnecessary than ever, though Browning was simply conforming to the standards of a less enlightened time.

Ironically, future leading lady Wong (Picadilly) is now better known than Dean, in part because she brought more of an edge to her characterizations; Dean is consistently good value, though she has more of an everywoman quality, even when playing fashionable lawbreakers, like Silky Moll.

While Silent serves time, Molly and safecracker "Dapper" Bill Ballard (Dean's then-husband Wheeler Oakman) wangle an invitation to a fancy-dress party where they knock out the host, open his safe, and abscond with the glittering goods. Afterward, they return to their respective apartments to hide out until things cool down. 

In the meantime, they get to know their four-year-old neighbor (Stanley Goethals), a detective's son with an unflattering bowl cut, who seems eager for companionship, possibly because his father is always on a case. He charms them with his dog and her cute puppies before convincing Dapper to help him build a cross-shaped kite (a portentous harbinger of Molly's moral resurrection to come). 

The more the couple eases into a life of tranquil domesticity, the more Dapper comes to think they should return the jewels, get married, and leave the criminal life behind, but then the perspiration-dappled Blackie darkens their doorstep, and this dreamy plan seems more remote than ever. 

The Library of Congress produced this 4K restoration, which lacks the original tinting, but looks good, other than some bubbly, cloudy nitrate deterioration towards the end. 

As Blackie, Chaney is sufficiently menacing, and Dean and Oatman make for a likeable pair. The mystery doesn't revolve so much around whether they'll go straight, but how they'll get around their deranged ex-partner to do it. 

Kino's release features an alternate, toned-down ending from the 16mm Show-at-Home print, a side-by-side look at the 16mm and 35mm restorations, and a highly informative commentary track from British film historian and frequent contributor Anthony Slide (Nitrate Won't Wait).

 

Trailer for the Masters of Cinema edition (with different special features)

Outside the Law is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Kino Lorber (it's also available to stream for free via YouTube). Images from the IMDb.