the audience applauded

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

THE ACE OF HEARTS is a strange, haunting tale about a mysterious club devoted to the elimination of "the man who lived too long." LON CHANEY is a member of this group of assassins who are determined to end the life of someone they've decided to kill. All of their motivations are never fully explained.The plot thickens when Chaney is not assigned the task, but the job is given to a man in love with LEATRICE JOY--as is Chaney. When the man cannot do the job, the club turns to him when he inadvertently chooses the Ace of Hearts and is expected to carry out the kill and thereby win the heart of Miss Joy. Strange indeed, as far as the plot goes. To tell more, would be to give away the twist ending.There's a mysterious element throughout, due partly to the story itself and the masterful photography capturing dark and windy scenes in a way that adds to the suspense. But the acting is strictly from the silent era, which means nobody gives the sort of performance today's viewer would find natural.Even Chaney is given to extreme posturing to portray a man frustrated in love and finding irony in the situation he finds himself in. He wears none of the extensive make-up usually associated with his parts, but it's not one of his most distinguished roles.Fans of the famed actor should find it worth viewing.

Lon Chaney is dealt the wrong card in Wallace Worsley's Ace of Hearts,an Anti-Red thriller written by Govuenor Morris who scripted the brilliant film 'The Penalty'. It's tough to really say what is wrong with Ace of Hearts other than the fact it has interesting set-ups but doesn't go through with them. The movie screams it's subject matter of the Red scare to the viewers but this society never lets it's plans be known to the audience. The pieces are there and we are able to put a loose version of their grand scheme together in our mind but it just doesn't work. I wanted to know what these people were up to and why Chaney, John Bowers, and Leatrice Joy believed in this cause. It is kind of a let down to see these characters as stereotypical looking Communists with unkempt goatees. Chaney's character Farallone is one of the most poorly developed he ever played. I imagine that on the shooting script there was next to nothing written in terms of character description. With a few rewrites the picture could have eliminated him entirely and just had Bowers but Lon is able to make this character interesting and compelling and that is a testament to his great skill.There are no small parts, just small actors. Lon Chaney was as large as they come. Farallone is given depth which he really doesn't deserve. Chaney plays him as a desperately lonely man trying to fill his life with this cause and who wants to win the love of Leatrice Joy's character Lilith. He could have been a stern and unwelcoming but Chaney doesn't play him as that. He is hopelessly shy and can never love but from a far. Unrequited love is the glue that held Chaney's career together but each character who experienced it is never the same as the one before. Farallone is a tragic being and in looking at the picture even in this silly Anti-Red scenario he is very human.Wallace Worsley offers fine direction to the picture. He is able to establish the mood of the secret meetings pitch perfectly and utilizes the camera to build tension in ways you all most don't expect from an early movie. I think he complimented Chaney quite well in the pictures they worked together on. The Penalty and Hunchback are obviously two of his finest works but Ace cannot be completely ignored. The scenes in the rain and where Farallone waits the night on the stairs with the dog are exceptional.Again the thing that brings this movie down is the lack of information we get about this secret society. I realize that the studio was skating on thin ice with the sensors but they can't just give us a plot about a secret society and have undertones about the ways of ancestors without giving us the full picture. These characters have strong beliefs to this cause but we don't know what the cause is and thus the characters are somewhat weakened.

An anarchist group decides that one man has lived too long. His executioner will be determined by chance. One of the group deals out cards to the rest. The one who gets the ace of hearts becomes the assassin. Two young men (Lon Chaney and John Bowers) desperately want that card. They are both courting the sole female member (Leatrice Joy), who thinks of nothing but The Cause. When Fate deals her own hand, one of the suitors (Chaney) must determine if he really loves the girl—or merely wants to possess her.The themes of love, honor, unrequited love and self-sacrifice pervade this fine suspense thriller. The script, written by Ruth Wightman from a story by Gouverneur Morris, and directed by Wallace Worsley, is extraordinarily deft at creating and maintaining suspense. All the details—what we see and don't see; what we are told about this anarchist group and what we're left to guess; and the moment when a certain character is at last introduced—are well chosen. The film only loses its footing briefly during the fatuous intertitles near the end ("Love is construction!").Lon Chaney is a great actor, but that doesn't mean he's perfect. He has a great face and a way of compelling our attention and sympathies. I think his main defect is best demonstrated by the scene where Lilith shows up at the door, and he expresses shock. He was clearly expecting this "shock." Lon Chaney is not always what actors call "living in the moment"—feeling things as the character feels them without anticipating the next line in the script. His ability to concentrate on his performance is said to have been intense; but he doesn't always live with his character moment by moment. The trouble is not his era's acting style. Even though people have knocked silent movie acting since the days of silent movies, the exaggerated expressions and gestures are really very powerful. So they are with Chaney.This excellent silent film was given an enormous boost in 2000 when Vivek Maddala won a competition and was hired to write the score, a job he performed beautifully. My high rating applies to the 2000 version of this film.

I think it's a mistake to compare silent movies in general to modern films. The medium is just plain different- subtlety isn't a strong point- kind of like vaudeville. This movie is a great little snippet of history. The story- about anarchists preparing to assassinate a "bad man" is very current for its time- only 3 years after WWI- caused by the assassination of a world figure by an anarchist. So, the message of the movie, that love trumps anarchy was current, and timely. Lon Chaney was a master of silent emoting- and yes, perhaps the acting seems stylized and mannered, but taken in context, it's a great deal of fun. It's also an interesting portrayal of a woman within a political movement- first as an ideologue detached from love and romance and then as a woman consumed by her passion and ready for her husband to abandon his principles to remain at her side. She's in some ways the villain of this piece- and in some ways the hero. Very nice shades of ethical grays.