West of Zanzibar is Lon Chaney as a man in a wheelchair who plots revenge from an African trading post, in a dark, atmospheric melodrama.
West of Zanzibar (1928), directed by Tod Browning, stars Chaney as Phroso, a magician who, after being crippled in a fight with a rival, becomes Dead Legs, a trader in Africa who plots revenge on the man who ruined his life and stole his wife. Phroso’s schemes, involving ivory, a young woman and a hidden identity, drive the film to a tragic end.
Chaney’s Phroso, confined to a wheelchair and consumed by hatred, is one of his darkest roles, yet he gives Phroso a weary, human side that makes his revenge feel like a burden, not a triumph.
It is a signature role because it is Chaney and Browning’s last great silent collaboration, and because it shows Chaney’s villainy at its most psychologically complex.