Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

The Trap (1922)

Lon Chaney, Alan Hale, Dagmar Godowsky, Irene Rich and Stanley Goethals are featured in this Universal Northwoods drama directed by Robert Thornby.

Gaspard LaRove (Chaney) is a happy-go-lucky Northwoodsman and owner of the Hyancinthe Mine in Canada. Gaspard soon learns that the city businessman Benson (Hale) has legally claimed ownership rights away and has employed a crew to work the mine. Gaspard, who cannot read, only posted a handmade sign to mark his claim willed to him by his father. Not only has the gruff Benson acquired the mine, he is also actively courting the affections of Thalie (Godowsky) whom Gaspard cherishes and loves. Expecting an answer to his marriage proposal, Gaspard learns that Thalie has left downriver with Benson. Gaspard’s once carefree demeanor turns vengeful and murderous.

After seven years, Gaspard has been consumed by the fires of hatred and Benson, back in the settlement with sickly wife Thalie and their boy child, has seen his fortunes diminish. Gaspard secretly gloats to see Benson is now the victim of bad luck and unhappiness. He goads brutish Pierre (Dick Sutherland) into threatening Benson, who defends himself with a pistol. When asked to prove Benson’s claim of self-defense, Gaspard denies the circumstance.

Gaspard visits delirious and dying Thalie who, mistakes him for her husband, implores him to care for their son (Goethals). Gaspard sees an opportunity to complete his revenge against Benson and Thalie by agreeing to the pact. Upon her death, the child is claimed by Gaspard whose malicious intent is barely masked but, inside him, there reluctantly blossoms a love for the boy. Months later, with Benson about to be released from prison, Gaspard fears he will lose the boy to his father, to whom he has confessed his several machinations to destroy Benson.

In an unexpected and illogical turn, Gaspard devises a plan to trap a large wolf to unleash on Benson inside his cabin. Through happenstance the boy is trapped in the cabin with the wolf but is rescued by Gaspard who is himself caught in his own trap with the vicious animal. Benson arrives to find the nearly-dead Gaspard and the very dead wolf. He is horrified to see the affaction his own son has for the man he hates so much.

Chaney received generally favorable reviews in this early starring role that runs the gamut of comically silly to intensely tragic. Much of the story attributed to Lucien Hubbard, Chaney and Universal executive Irving Thalberg is routine Northwoods melodrama. Only the gimmick of the cabin trap and Chaney’s performance lift the film up.

The filmmakers’ misguided attempt to convey Gaspard’s French-Canadian accent in elaborately slang-laden intertitles will challenge audiences to make sense of his dialogue. Some intertitles will fly by before they can fully be deciphered.

Exteriors for the film were partially filmed in Yosemite National Park and its beauty is featured in some spectacular establishing shots.

Overall, the film is not great but can be revisted more than once and not be disappointing.

— Carl Bennett