Absolutely amazing

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This very moody and atmospheric thriller about a secret society was directed by Wallace Worsley and written by Gouverneur Morris, who were both responsible for Lon Chaney's chilling movie "The Penalty" (1920). The evocative and eerie music (by Vivek Maddala, so much more appropriate than his score for "The Patsy") gets you into the mood instantly as a secret society meet on a windy, rainy night to plot the murder of "one who has lived too long". Even in the depths of all this seriousness there is a romantic triangle going on as Mr. Forrest (John Bowers) and Mr. Farallone (Lon Chaney) both fall in love with the elusive Lilith (Leatrice Joy) who is wedded to "the Cause"!!!After the gruelling role of "Blizzard" in "The Penalty", this role of the lovelorn Mr. Farallone must have seemed like a walk in the park to Chaney but such is the power of his acting that with a few emotive expressions he was still able to give a gripping performance. When the cards are dealt, the Ace of Hearts, the card of death, goes to Mr. Forrest and he is elated that he has been chosen to eliminate "the Menace" (Raymond Hatton). Lilith then announces that she will marry him if that will inspire him further but after a night of love she is a changed woman and begs Forrest to run away with her. He is supposed to go to his waiters job and leave a timed bomb at the seat where "the Menace" has his breakfast every morning at nine o'clock. But things don't go to plan and when he sees a pair of run away lovers (Cullen Landis is one) sitting at a nearby table he cannot go through with it. That means he, himself, is under sentence of death but meanwhile Lilith has extracted a promise from the lovesick Farallone that if something goes wrong he will help them. In an unexpected twist Farallone (which proves Chaney didn't give up all his intensity) makes Lilith promise that if Forrest doesn't return she will, in turn, marry him. But Farallone has an ace up his sleeve that paves the way for the newly wed's happiness.Chaney's intensity toward the end made me wonder if the movie was meant to be far longer than it's 75 minutes. It originally had a far different ending, much more exciting in my opinion. Lilith and Forrest are finally tracked down to their mountain haven by Morgridge, the Society leader, who, in the original ending had picked the Ace of Hearts as the one to hunt down and kill Forrest. He survives the bomb blast but when he sees the happy family (there is now a baby) he also renounces "the Cause" with a view that love conquers everything. When Samuel Goldwyn saw it, he declared it preposterous and ordered a new ending!!!It was this movie that bought Leatrice Joy (soon to be Mrs. John Gilbert) to the attention of Cecil B. DeMille and the next year she would shoot to fame in "Saturday Night" - he intended to do for her as he had done for Gloria Swanson. John Bowers was married to Marguerite De La Motte and his main claim to fame is that his life and death were the inspiration for the Norman Maine character of "A Star is Born", although neither he nor his wife were as famous as the two depicted in the movie.

The Lon Chaney silent suspense thriller "Ace of Hearts" ranks as one of the great thespian's less compelling films. First, he doesn't conceal himself beneath layers of make-up. He is basically Lon Chaney with long hair. Second, the action is appallingly dreary without a hint of humor. A secret society has decided at one of their clandestine meetings that an individual who had opportunities to change the world but did not must now die. They plan to blow him up with a powerful but small explosive device that looks rather benign. The Lon Chaney character Mr. Farallone is a member of this august body of men that has as one of its members a beautiful young lady. Lilith has dedicated herself to the society or what the members refer to as 'the Cause.' After the group agrees that the man should die, they hold another meeting when Lilith (Leatrice Joy) deals from a deck of playing cards to determine who will kill the man. The individual who receives the ace of hearts will serve as the executioner. Lilith deals the ace of hearts to the man who has been trying to romance her, Mr. Forrest (John Bowers), and he values the opportunity to carry out the execution. Of course, Farallone is disappointed that he did not receive the card. Lilith and Forrest get married and spend a night together before he goes off to carry out his orders. Forrest works as a waiter at the restaurant that the man who has lived too long usually enjoys his breakfast. A problem arises for Forrest because a young married couple end up sitting at a nearby table, and Forrest doesn't want to destroy their lives when he blows his target to smithereens. Forrest returns to the group of older men and Lilith and explains that he refused to blow up the target because of the young couple. The group dismisses Forrest and his wife. They are determined to punish Forrest for his failure to obey orders. They have a similar drawing to the earlier one and Farallone receives the infamous ace of hearts. Instead of blowing up Forrest and his wife, Farallone detonates the bomb in the room with the conspirators and they are all blasted to bits. Lilith and Forrest are getting off a train when they hear the newsboy hawking his papers and buy one to read about the explosion. "The Ace of Hearts" was another in a long line of Chaney pictures where he sacrificed himself for the love of a woman. Here, he sacrifices himself so that Lilith and Forrest can live."The Ace of Hearts" occurs in drab rooms with groups of older men discussing what will happen in the story. Although this movie made a little money, the critics bestowed more praise on it than audiences. Clocking in at 75 minutes, "The Ace of Hearts" appropriates the paranoia communism had bred with the Red Scare in America in 1919 to 1921. The Ruth Wightman screenplay never identifies the murderous brotherhood nor the man that the brotherhood means to kill. The narrative is painfully generic and neither the Cause nor the capitalist (Raymond Hatton) that they intend to eliminate are fleshed out in any detail.

"Ace of Hearts" (1921, Wallace Worsely) "Ace of Hearts" is a love triumphs over evil morality tale that happens to involve a vengeful secret society. One of the best faces for silent film ever, Lon Chaney, stars as Mr. Farallone, the dark, hulky, brooding assassin-like figure turned somewhat softie by love's charms, even if he's not going to be the ultimate victor in that battle. The film is overly dramatic throughout and yet beyond the already overwrought face of Lon Chaney, he possesses the most reserved acting and for a character who feels the event's story more so than any other character. In fact, "Ace of Hearts" may only be worth taking in for the chance to see Chaney. However, actors may definitely be mis- and/or underused in films and this film's prolific and veteran silent director Wallace Worsely should be given his dues. After all, one could expect a certain sense of added dramatization with the absence of diagetic sound.There are a couple of great external shots that are fantastic involving Chaney in a downpour and people walking on a really windy sidewalk at night. I get the poignant connection of the story of the secret society to the Red Scare of WWI, but the story still seems weak. Chaney carries the film.

...the plot isn't particularly strong to begin with; one has to have a good knowledge of the post-WW1 "Red Scare" to get out of it what the filmmakers intended, and even then it's not much to speak of. However, that actually works in an odd way, since it allows for this picture to be an example of how Lon Chaney's acting talents contributed to his movies. They truly carry the show here, especially the subtleties of his facial expressions. There's also a rare opportunity to see John Bowers, one of the stars of silent cinema whose career came to a screeching halt with the advent of talkies; the character of Norman Maine in the first two Hollywood productions of A STAR IS BORN was in part based on Bowers. It's also interesting to see the original Goldwyn Pictures logo at the beginning of the picture, before the design was only slightly adapted for use by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer three years later...