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White Tiger (1923 film)
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Wikipedia article
'White Tiger' is a 1923 American crime film directed by Tod Browning starring Priscilla Dean and featuring Wallace Beery in a supporting role.[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.mbrs.sfdb.892/default.html The Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Catalog: 'White Tiger'] Retrieved November 3, 2014[http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=13284 The AFI Catalog of Feature Films: 'White Tiger'] Retrieved November 3, 2014
Sobchack, 2006 p. 24: The White Tiger is essentially a remake of Outside the Law (1920).
Cast
* Priscilla Dean as Sylvia Donovan
* Matt Moore as Dick Longworth
* Raymond Griffith as Roy Donovan
* Wallace Beery as Count Donelli / Hawkes
* Alfred Allen as Mike Donovan
* Emmett King as Bishop Vail - chessplayer (uncredited)
* Lillian Langdon as Party Hostess (uncredited)
* Eric Mayne as Party Host (uncredited)
Theme
In 'White Tiger', Browning, a former magician, provides an expos of the mystifying mechanics of the famous chess-playing automaton widely exhibited in late 18th and early 19th century Europe and America.Solomon, 2006 p. 50-51: ...prior to his career as a director, Browning was a magician...a 1914 movie fan magazine described him...as a sideshow artist... And p. 51: A number of Browning films of the 1920s contain striking reproductions of theatrical- or quasi-theatrical- illusions that are staged not only for spectators within the films, but for contemporaneous viewers of the films themselves. The automaton fashioned to represent a Turkish chess master was an often convincingthough entirely fraudulentrepresentation of artificial intelligence: the device was actually operated by a human chess expert concealed within the cabinet below the chess board.Solomon, 2006 p. 55: Scenes from White Tiger provide correspondences with Poes published expose (accent) Maelzels [automaton] chess-player.
Browning, a great admirer of Edgar Allan Poe, combined Poes famous 1836 essay on the hoax with the authors fascination with tales of mystery and the macabre.Solomon, 2006 p. 56: During his career as a director Browning was compared to Poe [by Joan Dickey in Motion Picture Magazine, March 1928, See footnotes]...In a studio biographical survey in the late 1930s Browning listed Poe as his favorite classical authorEaker, 2016 : In 1836, Poe wrote an expose of the touring Mechanical Chess Player Automaton. In the expose Poe revealed that inside this mechanical chess player was a concealed, quite human operator. Poes article was the seed for Brownings film
The protagonists in 'White Tiger' use the baffling device to gain entrance to a wealthy estate and execute a jewel heist.Solomon, 2006 p. 51: In 'White Tiger' (1923) it is the false chess-playing automaton which the protagonists use to gain entrance to-and burgle-high society homes. In exposing the fraud, Browning violates a precept of the magicians code of ethics; to never reveal the mechanics of an illusion.Solomon, 2006 p. 52: ...Brownings films explicitly violate the magicians professional code, which stipulates that stage illusions [remain] concealed to the spectator...Browning did not hesitate to expose the methods of magic tricks on screen.
Eaker, 2016: After a jewelry heist in a mansion, utilizing the Mechanical Chess Player, the trio hole up at a claustrophobic cabin in the mountains. The final quarter of the film casts a Poe-like eye on imagined (and real) enemies.
Footnotes
References
*Eaker, Alfred. 2016. '[https://alfredeaker.com/2016/01/26/todd-browning-director-retrospective/ Tod Browning Retrospective]' Retrieved 26 February 2021.
*Sobchack, Vivian. 2006. "The Films of Tod Browning: An Overview Long Past" in 'The Films of Tod Browning', editor Bernd Herzogenrath, 2006 Black Dog Publishing. London. pp. 2139.
*Solomon, Matthew. 2006. "Staging Deception: Theatrical Illusionism in the Browning Films of the 1920s" in 'The Films of Tod Browning', editor Bernd Herzogenrath, 2006 Black Dog Publishing. London. pp. 4967
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