Lon Chaney during the production of The Miracle Man.
Plot
The film takes place in a small, New England town in 1919 (the Broadway play 1914), where a group of con men plan to use a faith healer to collect money.
In New York City's Chinatown, four crooks conspire to swindle a small New England town. The gang consists of Tom Burke (Thomas Meighan), the head of the group; Rose (Betty Compson), a con artist posing as a street walker; "The Dope" (J.M. Dumont), who pretends to pimp Rose; and The Frog (Lon Chaney), a contortionist.
The plan is clear: in a small town outside of Boston there is a Patriarch (Joseph Dowling) who has been healing people. The group heads to the town and plans to use the Patriarch in a faith healing scheme. When the townspeople gather to see the Patriarch heal the sick, the Frog is there, posing as a cripple. As he crawls to the path of the man, his limbs become straightened and soon he walks to the Patriarch, supposedly healed. Unexpectedly, a crippled boy, his faith in the Patriarch overpowering him, loses his crutches and runs to the Patriarch.
The story spreads across the country (mostly on account of Burke), and people flock in from all over to visit the Patriarch and be healed. When a millionaire, Richard King (W. Lawson Butt), brings his sister to be healed, he gives Burke $50,000 after the Patriarch cures her. During this visit, King meets Rose, and the two fall in love.
Meanwhile, all is not well with Burke. One by one, he sees his gang disbanding because, unbeknownst to him, the healing power of the Patriarch is at work. The Dope gives up his drug addiction, The Frog gives up his life of crime and takes care of a widow left all alone, and Rose laments King's departure.
Burke becomes jealous, but when King returns to propose marriage to Rose, she realizes that she loves Burke. The Patriarch dies, and the two lovers begin anew.
Initially intended as a vehicle for Meighan after he saw the Cohan play, Cohan sold the rights to the story to Paramount for $25,000. Packard sold the rights to his original novel for $17,500.[4] George Loane Tucker had previously been hailed as one of the "first of the immortals" of film directors after his 1913 success, Traffic in Souls. Alfred A. Grasso, an assistant director on the film, would later go on to serve as Lon Chaney's business manager and personal friend.[5]
Lon Chaney was chosen by director George Loane Tucker, and this was his eighth film as a free-lance artist after leaving Universal Studios in 1918. His work in the William S. Hart picture, Riddle Gawne established him as a character actor of some notoriety, but it was The Miracle Man that would put both his acting and makeup skills (for which he was famous) to the test. Chaney auditioned for the part of The Frog in Tucker's office, grotesquely contorting his body. Tucker was reportedly "shaken" by the intensity of Chaney's performance.
This film version is more based on the novel than the stage play. However, neither the movie nor the stage play used the character names from the novel.
Character name in movie
Character name in novel
The Frog
The Flopper (uses alias Michael Coogan)
Rose
Helena Smith (uses alias Helena Vail)
The Dope
Pale Face Harry
Tom Burke
John Garfield "Doc" Madison
Richard King
Robert Thornton
Reception
The Miracle Man was well received by both critics and audiences. Initially produced for $126,000,[4] the film grossed $1,000,000 in theatrical rentals[1] and became the second highest-grossing film of 1919.[6][7] During the film's run at the Orchestra Hall in Chicago, (where it broke all house records), airplanes dropped free tickets and brass coins which read "The Miracle Man is here" printed on one side and "Have faith, keep this" on the other.
Because of the film's success, it launched its leads, Compson, Meighan and Chaney, into stardom. Meighan later went on to major leading roles while Chaney became one of the highest paid character actors in Hollywood until his death in 1930. Compson's name rose above the titles of most of the movies she made for the rest of the silent era.[8] George Loane Tucker received critical success from the film and planned more, but only completed one more film before his death in 1921.[9]
"Since BEN HUR nothing approaching this has been seen on stage or screen, and it has BEN HUR beaten seven ways for real sentiment. It is simpler, more true to life as we know it, and so more effective...Commercially, this is a picture that will coin money. Artistically, it marks hope's triumph over experience." ---Variety[11]
"Pictorially, the drama is a succession of compositions that have true artistic form. The conception and handling of the scenes in which The Frog is the central figure...are daring and masterly. Only in the drawings of Dore for Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame can such criminal monstrosities be found...Three of the performances in the picture are sufficiently meritorious to rank with any impersonation so far known to the screen. These performances are the Tom Burke of Thomas Meighan, the Rose of Betty Compson, and The Frog of Lon Chaney." ---Moving Picture World[11]
"If ever a play made stars, this one will. Whose is the finest performance? Really, I don't know. I should say that honors are even, gauged only by the various opportunities...Lon Chaney is so good as the Frog that I cannot think of anyone who could have played that grotesque monster as effectively." ---Photoplay[11]
"It has been shown that thru the magic of the motion picture the people can be dazzled by pagentry, thrilled by magnificent spectacle and the simulation of dramatic perils. But they become sated with these mechanical ingenuities and extravagances. It is when the secret places of the heart are opened to them that the response is greatest, as to this revelation of the silent power of faith and purity, in a story unfolding in the beauty and fragrance of a flower. / We would not envy the man or woman, however intellectual, who could see this simple drama unmoved, who would not confess deriving from it a new sense of kinship with humanity and a deeper understanding of the spiritual forces of existence. ---Motion Picture News[12]
"Unusually good work is done by Thomas Meighan, Betty Compson and Lon Chaney in a picture which will please all movie enthusiasts and convert a few more." ---New York Times[5]
"Lon Chaney as the deformed cripple, The Frog, does some of the best work of his career.....(Mr. Chaney offers a bit of character study that will entrench him firmly in the minds of those who witness it. George Loane Tucker has given the screen a masterpiece." ----Exhibitors Trade Review[5]
"The Miracle Man is the most exceptionally entertaining and trememdously appealing dramatic production I have ever seen....Lon Chaney, in an exceptional characterization, will be remembered forever by everyone who sees this film." ---Wid's Film Daily[5]
Preservation
Fragment of The Miracle Man
The majority of The Miracle Man is now lost.[13][3][14] However, two fragments of the film survive: the first is a segment of one of Paramount's Movie Milestone series, Movie Memories (1935), showcasing the studios' greatest achievements.[15] This clip shows both a segment from the conclave in Chinatown as well as the healing scene, which was praised by critics as one of the most powerful scenes yet put on film. A nitrate print of Movie Memories is reportedly at the UCLA Film and Television Archive but has not yet been preserved.
The second clip that survives is part of a short promotional film called The House That Shadows Built (1931) made for Paramount's 20th anniversary of its founding in 1912.[16] This footage was used when a full print of the film still existed.[17] All told, a total of only about 3 minutes of the film exists at this point.[18]
Home media
The documentary Movie Milestones with the surviving fragments was released from Blackhawk Films in 8mm format in the 1970s.[15] These fragments were featured in the 1995 documentary Lon Chaney: Behind the Mask, produced by Kino International and included on the 2012 DVD release version of The Penalty (1920).[19][20]
Related Research Articles
Betty Compson was an American actress and film producer who got her start during Hollywood's silent era. She is best known for her performances in The Docks of New York and The Barker, the latter of which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
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Leonidas Frank "Lon" Chaney was an American actor and makeup artist. He is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of cinema, renowned for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and afflicted, characters and for his groundbreaking artistry with makeup. Chaney was known for his starring roles in such silent horror films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925). His ability to transform himself using makeup techniques that he developed earned him the nickname "The Man of a Thousand Faces".
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The Shock is a 1923 American silent drama film directed by Lambert Hillyer and starring Lon Chaney as a disabled man named Wilse Dilling. The film was written by Arthur Statter and Charles Kenyon, based on a magazine story by William Dudley Pelley. This is one of the rare Lon Chaney films in which his character ends up with the female "love interest." The film is readily available on DVD.
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The Miracle Man is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Norman Z. McLeod, starring Sylvia Sidney and Chester Morris, and featuring Boris Karloff. It is a remake of the 1919 film of the same name starring Lon Chaney. The film was originally supposed to star Tyrone Power Sr., as the Preacher/Patriarch, but he died before major filming got underway. His part was then completed by Hobart Bosworth.
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Nomads of the North is a 1920 American drama film of the North Woods co-directed and co-written by David Hartford and James Oliver Curwood, and featuring Lon Chaney, Betty Blythe, and Lewis Stone. The film was based on Curwood's own 1919 novel of the same name. The film still exists in complete form and is available on DVD. The film's original poster also still exists.
George Loane Tucker was an American actor, silent film director, screenwriter, producer, and editor.
Frankie Lee, was an American child actor. He appeared in 56 films between 1916 and 1925. Best remembered for the 1919 film The Miracle Man, he was the little boy on crutches healed by the phony faith healer just after Lon Chaney.
Victory is a surviving 1919 American action film directed by Maurice Tourneur and starring Jack Holt, Seena Owen, Lon Chaney, Wallace Beery and Bull Montana. The film is an adaptation of the 1915 eponymous novel by Joseph Conrad. The screenplay was written by Jules Furthman and Ben Carré was the art director.
The Next Corner is a 1924 American silent romantic melodrama film directed by Sam Wood. The film starred Dorothy Mackaill and Lon Chaney. Based on the romance novel of the same name by Kate Jordan, the film was produced by Famous Players–Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures.
For Those We Love is a 1921 American silent romantic drama film produced by and starring Betty Compson, and featuring Lon Chaney and Richard Rosson. Written and directed by Arthur Rosson, the film was based on a story by Perley Poore Sheehan (who later co-wrote the script for Chaney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The film was distributed by Goldwyn Pictures. Some sources list the release date as being in March 1921. This is unlikely since the film was only copyrighted in July, but the exact release date has not been confirmed. It is now considered a lost film. A still exists showing Chaney holding the heroine.
Ladies Must Live is a 1921 American silent societal drama film directed by George Loane Tucker and released by Paramount Pictures. It was the last directorial effort of George Loane Tucker and was released four months after his death. Betty Compson stars along with Leatrice Joy, John Gilbert and Mahlon Hamilton. It was one of the few instances where future husband and wife Joy and Gilbert appeared in the same film.
↑ McCarty, John (2005). Bullets Over Hollywood: The American Gangster Picture from the Silents to "The Sopranos". Da Capo Press. p.46. ISBN0-306-81429-3.
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