Not long before they collaborated on
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, star
Lon Chaney and director Wallace Worsley combined their talents on
Blind Bargain. As was often his wont, Chaney plays two roles: mad scientist Arthur Lamb and Lamb's "experiment", known only as the Ape Man. This hideous creature was the result of Lamb's attempts to transplant animal glands into human beings. This particular "science" was not unknown in the 1920s (remember the "Goat Gland Man" of radio fame?), though we are certain that the results were never this catastrophic. Chaney's bestial makeup in The Blind Bargain has much in common with the makeup worn by
Fredric March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide