The Trap

Lon Chaney became known as “The Man of a Thousand Faces” because of his ability with make-up to transform himself into monsters, Asians, pirates, hunchbacks, circus clowns, legless and armless people, and more. But Chaney could also take on a straight dramatic role equally well. One such example is “The Trap,” a melodrama that takes place in the Canadian Northwest.Chaney plays Gaspard, a kindly simpleton who appreciates life and the beauty of nature—until he is wronged. After Benson (Alan Hale) steals Gaspard’s mine and his sweetheart, Thalie (Dagmar Godowsky), Gaspard’s easy-going nature turns vengeful. He instigates a fight between Benson and brutish Pierre. In self-defense, Benson shoots Pierre and is arrested. Gaspard refuses to testify that the shooting was in self-defense and Benson is sent to prison. While Benson is locked up, Thalie dies. Gaspard takes her young son to live with him and grows to love the boy as his own.Because Pierre did not die of his wounds, Benson is eventually freed. Gaspard fears he will lose the boy to Benson and prepares for the worst by setting an elaborate trap. He captures a wolf, builds a cage connecting to his shack, and leaves the starving animal inside so that when Benson opens the shack door, he will be attacked by the wolf.Chaney takes on a complicated role as the simple-minded Gaspard, whose all-embracing love of mankind is turned into hatred by the cruelty and unpredictability of fate. His performance is a study in contrasts. When we first see him, he is extremely likable. He has heart, and his affection for Thalie is genuine. Later, he is consumed with a desire to inflict pain and suffering on the man who has taken everything from him. Chaney elicits sympathy for Gaspard early on as we see how he interacts with children and adults and how gently he treats Thalie. Some of that sympathy erodes when he becomes obsessed with vengeance, since the law is technically on Benson’s side regarding ownership of the mine and Thalie willingly goes off with him. Gaspard is too dim to recognize any of this and becomes consumed with destroying Benson.Director Robert Thornby doesn’t have the visual flair of Tod Browning, who would collaborate with Chaney on some of his best films, but he does give Chaney plenty of close-ups so the viewer can see how effectively the actor registers a change of emotion within a scene. There’s also a subtlety about Gaspard’s vengeance. It’s achieved through patience, cunning, and thoughtfulness. A very dark side of Gaspard emerges as events alter his world view.The dialogue inter-titles are written in Canadian dialect to illustrate Gaspard’s heavily accented, imprecise manner of speaking. Many of the descriptive inter-titles are flowery and depend on cloying emotion. “Those small, eager fingers, clutching at the tendrils of his heart — how, he knew not, only that he felt them tugging… tugging…” For those unfamiliar with the traditions of silent pictures, these passages call attention to the style of a bygone cinematic era and distract from the flow of the narrative.Some of the film’s working titles were “Wolfbreed,” “The Mask,” and “The Heart of a Wolf.” Portions of “The Trap” were shot on location in Yosemite, California.Bonus materials on the unrated, Region A Blu-ray release include By the Sun’s Rays, a 1914 Western featuring Lon Chaney, and Lon Chaney: Behind the Mask, a documentary on the life and career of Chaney.“The Trap” is not one of Chaney’s best-known films but it is worth watching to see the actor’s versatility in a movie that relies on acting ability rather than jaw-dropping make-up effects.