West of Zanzibar (1928) on Netflix
NR19281h 10mDramaMysteryThriller
Phroso, a stage magician, learns his wife Anna is leaving him for the trader Crane. Crane shoves him over a railing, crippling him, and Phroso vows revenge on Crane and Anna's child.
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- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.2/102,143 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
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Plot summary
Phroso works as a stage magician, and his wife Anna has resolved to leave him but cannot say so. Her lover, the ivory trader Crane, tells Phroso himself that Anna is going with him to Africa, and when the two men fight, Crane shoves Phroso over a railing hard enough to cripple him. Once released from the hospital, Phroso pulls himself around the neighborhood on a small wooden platform. A year afterward he hears that Anna came back from Africa alone, and he finds her dead of starvation in a church, a baby beside her. He swears to punish both Crane and the child.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about West of Zanzibar (1928)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Hays office, Hollywood's official censor, banned the stage play Kongo from the screen, so MGM dodged the ruling by renaming the film first South of the Equator and finally West of Zanzibar.
- Tod Browning allegedly shot sequences for the film that no longer exist, including Lon Chaney's Phroso appearing as The Human Duck in a freak show act and the troupe's first arrival in Africa. Stills of Chaney in the duck costume exist, but it is unclear whether the scene was shot or only planned.
- Mary Nolan was hired to play the part of Maizie in West of Zanzibar because, as the article puts it, she had "such sad eyes".
- Warner Baxter played Doc in West of Zanzibar, but the role was originally set to go to Owen Moore before Baxter took it instead.
- Even though the film was a success at home and abroad, West of Zanzibar ran into censorship problems in the British colony of Tanganyika over its portrayal of Africans.
