| White Tiger | |
|---|---|
 Lantern slide | |
| Directed by | Tod Browning |
| Written by | Tod Browning Charles Kenyon |
| Starring | Priscilla Dean Matt Moore Wallace Beery |
| Cinematography | William Fildew |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 86 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
White Tiger is a 1923 American silent crime film directed by Tod Browning starring Priscilla Dean and featuring Wallace Beery in a supporting role. [1] [2] [3]
As the film opens, Mike Donovan, a London criminal, is betrayed to the police by his associate, Hawkes. Donovan is shot by police and Hawkes flees to Paris with Donovan's young daughter Sylvia, leaving Donovan's young son Roy behind. Each sibling grows up believing the other is dead.
After some years, Hawkes and Sylvia return to London. There they encounter Roy, now known as "the Kid," who operates a bogus chess-playing automaton. Hawkes and Sylvia invite Roy to join forces with them. The three take the automaton to New York, where Hawkes calls himself "Count Donelli" and rents a mansion on Fifth Avenue. Sylvia poses as the Count's daughter and Roy as his secretary. The three plan to use the automaton to gain access to the houses of the wealthy in order to carry out jewel robberies. Meanwhile Sylvia has fallen for an admirer, the well-bred Dick Longworth, who takes them to visit his hunting cabin in the Catskills.
The trio exhibits the automaton at the home of Longworth's sister. After the chess match, Roy slips out of the automaton and steals pieces of jewelry from a safe. The butler recognizes that he is not one of the guests and has him brought downstairs. When interrogated he pretends to be deaf and dumb, then gives his captors the slip on the way to the police station. Hawkes and Sylvia realize that Longworth has recognized Roy and that they must flee. The trio decide to lie low in Longworth's cabin. Guessing where they have gone, Longworth arrives at the cabin and is taken prisoner.
At the cabin the trio grow increasingly mistrustful of one another. As Hawkes sows division between Sylvia and Roy, Longworth looks on in amusement. Finally Hawkes and Roy fight and Roy is badly injured. Sylvia and Roy realize that they are brother and sister and that it was Hawkes who betrayed Donovan. Hawkes flees and has a fatal accident in the woods. The police break into the cabin, but Longworth assures them that the robbery was "just an experiment" and the jewelry will be returned. He tells Sylvia that all four of them have been cat's-paws of fate.
In White Tiger, Browning, a former magician, provides an exposé of the “mystifying mechanics” of the famous chess-playing automaton widely exhibited in late 18th and early 19th century Europe and America. [4] The automaton fashioned to represent a Turkish chess master was an often convincing—though entirely fraudulent—representation of artificial intelligence: the device was actually operated by a human chess expert concealed within the cabinet below the chess board. [5] Browning, a great admirer of Edgar Allan Poe, combined Poe’s famous 1836 essay on the hoax with the author’s fascination with tales of mystery and the macabre. [6] [7]
The protagonists in White Tiger use the “baffling” device to gain entrance to a wealthy estate and execute a jewel heist. [8] In exposing the fraud, Browning violates a precept of the magician's code of ethics; to never reveal the mechanics of an illusion. [9]
Tod Browning was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of various genres between 1915 and 1939, but was primarily known for horror films. Browning was often cited in the trade press as "the Edgar Allan Poe of cinema."
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The Unknown is a 1927 American silent horror film directed by Tod Browning, and starring Lon Chaney as carnival knife thrower "Alonzo the Armless" and Joan Crawford as his beloved carnival girl Nanon. Originally titled Alonzo the Armless, filming took place from February 7 to March 18, 1927 on a $217,000 budget.
A Night to Remember is a 1958 British historical disaster docudrama film based on the eponymous 1955 book by Walter Lord. The film and book recount the final night of RMS Titanic, which sank on her maiden voyage after she struck an iceberg in 1912. Adapted by Eric Ambler and directed by Roy Ward Baker, the film stars Kenneth More as the ship's Second Officer Charles Lightoller and features Michael Goodliffe, Laurence Naismith, Kenneth Griffith, David McCallum and Tucker McGuire. It was filmed in the United Kingdom and tells the story of the sinking, portraying the main incidents and players in a documentary-style fashion with considerable attention to detail. The production team, supervised by producer William MacQuitty used blueprints of the ship to create authentic sets, while Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall and ex-Cunard Commodore Harry Grattidge worked as technical advisors on the film. Its estimated budget of up to £600,000 was exceptional and made it the most expensive film ever made in Britain up to that time. The film's score was written by William Alwyn.
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Houdini is a 1953 American Technicolor biographical film from Paramount Pictures, produced by George Pal and Berman Swarttz, directed by George Marshall, that stars Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. The film's screenplay, based upon the life of magician and escape artist Harry Houdini, was written by Philip Yordan, based on the book Houdini by Harold Kellock. The film's music score was by Roy Webb and the cinematography by Ernest Laszlo. The art direction was by Albert Nozaki and Hal Pereira, and the costume design by Edith Head.
A magician's assistant is a performer in a magic act who is not billed as the magician or principal name in the act.
Fritzi Ridgeway was an American silent film actress, vaudeville performer, and hotelier. Although she starred in numerous films, she is perhaps best known for her work in silent Western films.
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