The Blackbird, 1926

The Blackbird is a 1926 American silent crime film directed by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney. The screenplay was written by Waldemar Young, based on a story “The Mockingbird” by Tod Browning (which was originally supposed to be the film’s title). Cedric Gibbons and Arnold Gillespie handled the set design. Makeup man Cecil Holland also played one of the old men living at the mission. Character actors Eddie Sturgis and Willie Fung appeared in several other Lon Chaney movies during this time period. The film took 31 days to shoot at a cost of $166,000. The tagline was “Lon Chaney in his successor to The Unholy Three”.

The film received positive reviews, especially for Chaney’s performance in his scenes transitioning from “The Blackbird” to the twisted body of “The Bishop,” but it was judged as not being as good as some of Chaney’s previous films. The film did earn a profit of $63,000, but that was the lowest return of any of Chaney’s films for MGM.