The Shock

The Shock is a 1923 American silent drama film (a Universal Jewel) 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 where he gets the girl. The film is readily available on DVD. Costing only $90,000 to make, the film took in a huge profit for Universal. A lobby card from the film can be seen on the internet, as well as the film's poster art. The film's tagline was "You haven't seen anything yet!" Plot In 1906, Wilse Dilling (Lon Chaney), a crippled gangster living in Chinatown, receives a coded message to go to the home of his boss, Ann Cardington (Christine Mayo), known as "Queen Ann", a powerful crime boss feared in the underworld. When Wilse meets with her, she sends him to the suburban town of Fallbrook, where he is to establish himself and await her instructions in dealing with a former lover of hers, a banker named Micha Hadley (William Welsh), who had once betrayed her. Dilling is to pose as a telegraph operator in the local office there in order to keep watch on the banker. Being dependent on crutches and a wheelchair has not stopped Dilling from committing a lengthy series of crimes, but to his surprise, he finds that the small town atmosphere makes him feel alive for the first time. He befriends banker Hadley's attractive daughter Gertrude (Virginia Valli). Dilling falls in love with her and she helps him believe that even he can make a fresh start. Gertrude, however, is engaged to young Jack Cooper (Jack Mower), and Chaney realizes that a pretty girl like her would never be attracted to a handicapped man like himself.