Unidentified Lon Chaney Stills

This is a collection of stills that I have not positively identified yet. For several of these I have narrowed them down a bit, but cannot be certain of the film. To give better resolution, these are included as large image files. Click on the link to see the enlarged image. If youthink you have figured one out, send me an e-mail at jon@lonchaney.org and I will post your name on this site and proclaim you as one of the holy ones.

Unidentified #3 1914; with Murdoch MacQuarrie(?) and Pauline Bush. Possibly The Lie (1914), although I don't really think so.

Unidentified #5 1914; obviously a western setting, and Chaney looks sympathetic, so this could be The Old Cobbler (1914)

Unidentified #6 c1914-15; I'm pretty sure this is William C. Dowlan and Pauline Bush. Possibly All for Peggy (1915) or Star of the Sea (1915).

Unidentified #10 c1914; Possibly Red Margaret, Moonshiner (1913) or The End of the Feud (1914)

Unidentified #13 Michael Blake thinks this is from The Gilded Spider (1916). He could be right, but I think Chaney looks too young, and this outfit is different than other scenes from the film. I think it is more likely from The Menace to Carlotta (1914, Universal/Rex) or A Ranch Romance (1914, Nestor).

Unidentified #15 I'm not convinced this is from any particular film. It could be some kind of publicity shot, or a makeup test. Tod Browning expert Eric Grayson thinks this may be a makeup test from A Blind Bargain (1922) but I can't confirm or deny that.

Unidentified #17 c1915; The girl appears to be Pauline Bush, which only narrows this down to about 45 titles! Based on synopses, it could possibly be Remember Mary Magdelen (1914), Discord and Harmony (1914), The Sin of Olga Brandt (1915), Such is Life (1915) or Outside the Gates (1915).

Unidentified #19 This is the most intriguing Chaney still I have ever seen. I would never have even thought this was Lon Chaney except that this still came from the estate of George Chaney, Lon's youngest brother. Lon sent pictures home for George, and on this one he drew a small X on the crown he is wearing and wrote on the back, "I was playing a wild man here." This is obviously something set at the time of the Roman Empire, and there is no such film in any of Lon's billed appearances, so this is clearly an unbilled appearance, probably from 1912-1913. There are rumors that Chaney appears in DAMON AND PYTHIAS (1914, Universal), and this appears to be the makeup for the wildmen in the film, but if Chaney is in it, it is a very small part. Chaney buff Nancy Cassady also noted that there are people in the background that appear to be in Civil War costumes. This could simply be a publicity shot for a variety of Universal productions of that year.

Unidentified #20 This interesting shot comes from a frame blowup of a tiny fragment of surviving 35mm film. I believe the other players are William Dowland and Pauline Bush, and by process of elimination, the only synopses that seem to fit this photo would be The End the Feud (1914) or An Idyll of the Hills (1915).

Identified Stills!

Special honors go to Juliana Venier, Critt Davis, The Silents Majority, and Michael Blake who helped to identify Unidentified Stills #1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 12, and 14.