My plan was to watch L’Aventura this week, which got a rare terrestrial TV showing, but I forgot to tape it, which was very annoying as I haven’t seen it and I was hoping to write about it. But it’s too late now and so I’m falling back on a largely unknown silent film called The Penalty.

The team of director Wallace Worsley and star Lon Chaney (my favourite actor by the way) is best known for 1924′s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Chaney’s protrayal of the Quasimodo is still definitive (even better than Charles Laughton’s later talkie version) and one of the greatest characterisation’s in film history. There are some other strong performances in the film (notably that of Patsy Ruth Miller) and some clever effects and spectacular moments. That said it is still a deeply flawed film; the adaptation from Hugo’s great but miserablist novel is unbalanced and Worsely’s direction is leaden and occasionally laughable.

The fact is that Worsely was absolutely the wrong choice for director, he had no experience with the epic and was an ‘economic’ choice by Universal studio. But he was not a bad director, as evidenced by The Penalty.

In some ways The Hunchback of Notre Dame re-inforces almost every bad stereotype about silent films; slowly paced, occasionally overacted, boringly shot. On the flipside, The Penalty defies all silent film stereotypes, it is violent and sexual, fast-paced and vital. It is also complete nonsense, the story of a man whose legs are amputated accidentally by a drunk surgeon who embarks on a quest for revenge and a leg transplant. In his spare time, the legless man (Blizzard, played by Chaney) becomes an underworld kingpin, running a sweatshop with ruthless efficiency. As I said; nonsense. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not well-written, let’s be honest, Indiana Jones isn’t exactly realistic, and Hitchcock’s fabulous North by Northwest has a famously nonsensical plot; they’re still vastly entertaining films.

Much of the entertainment in The Penalty undoubtedly comes from Chaney, his Blizzard is a brilliant villain, particularly when abusing his female workers; when he loses his crutches he pulls himself along the table, still bellowing his anger and lashing out at people. It’s a tour de force performance and, as always, Chaney put himself through hell to get it, strapping his legs back so they appeared to be amputated at the knee. He ran like this and even jumped, landing (agonisingly one would imagine) on his knees. Between takes his legs had to be massaged to get the feeling back into them. There’s little doubt that Chaney channeled his physical pain into this stunning performance.

There’s a lesson to be learnt here; don’t be afraid of a really bad, bad guy. So often writers give their bad guys a sympathetic back story that detracts from the threat that villain poses. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Blizzard is arguably extremely justified in his vendetta against the surgeon who maimed him, he has as sad a backstory as any, but he’s still clearly psychotic!

The film is directed with economy by Worsley (who would direct Chaney another four times), it’s short and to the point, never pasuing to consider the madness of the situation and so preventing the audience from doing the same. Instead it sweeps you along with it. And let’s not discount the plot too quickly; leg transplants might be science fiction but this film was made in 1920, directly after the first world war, when the streets were full of amputees coming back from Europe. There may be a little wish fulfilment here, and it is at least a timely film.

The Penalty may not be as well known as a lot of other silent films but that is because we remember ‘great’ films, ones with meaning. The Penalty is one of the best pure thrillers of the era and is well worth checking out. Having said all that, it’s a bastard to get hold of so good luck.

My pick of the week’s TV is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which is on Wednesday at 2.45 on Film4. It’s one of the last of the John Wayne/John Ford collaborations but one of the best, starting the dissection of the mythology of the old west two years before Sergio Leone got in on the act and decades before Eastwood’s Unforgiven. Besides, it’s John Wayne, James Stewart and Lee Marvin in one film; that’s value for money.

Given that my interest in football starts and stops with finding out what time big matches are on so I can avoid pubs with screens, this is an unusual film to pick. So Why am i picking it? Well, I watched it last week and there’s been a bit in the news recently about it’s director Thorold Dickinson (you just don’t see many Thorolds these days) folowing a restoration of his masterpiece The Queen of Spades.

Arguably The Queen of Spades would have been the film to write about but I haven’t seen that. Besides, The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, while not in the same league (I’m told), is still great fun. It’s a fairly basic whodunnit based around the Arsenal Stadium. At least i say it’s a whodunnit but to be honest, I don’t think you have a cat in hell’s chance of guessing who did it. I certainly didn’t come close. What the film feels most of all like is a very well made (and pretty high budget) episode of Midsummer Murders or some similar show.

It’s starting to sound like a pretty dreary, middle Englandish sort of a film so I should hastily say that it’s not. What really elevates the film is what elevates any whodunnit worth it’s salt, the key element that every TV detective show needs, that makes reason you watch Columbo and avoid Murder She Wrote; a great detective.

Leslie Banks’s Inspector Slade is a wonderful character, we meet him sporting a beret as he nimbly choreograph’s the policeman’s fundraising gala. He changes hats throughout, as he wears different ones depending on what he is doing, and is jovially polite to people who clearly hate him. Despite his eccentricities, he is of course brilliant and there is never any doubt that he will solve the thing.

In some ways this is a mediocre film made great by a single character but that misses some other really good performances. Ian Mclean plays Slade’s sidekick Sergeant Clinton and never allows Banks to steal the scenes completely, while heroines Greta Gynt and Liane Linden are likewise good.

The film may not be a masterpiece but it never purports to be one, it keeps it’s tongue firmly in it’s cheek and sets out to entertain. Which it undoubtedly does. It’s possible that a football fan might enjoy it even more.

My pick of this week (despite the presence of Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and It Happened One Night) is on Film 4 this Thursday at 3:00pm; Bad Day at Black Rock is one of those films that takes a Western plot and updates it brilliantly, and it’s one of Spencer Tacy’s finest thirllers. Miss it at your peril.