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[[caption-width-right:350:The outpost was chronically short on deodorant.]]

''West of Zanzibar'' is a 1928 silent film starring the Man of a Thousand Faces, Creator/LonChaney.

Here, Chaney plays Phroso, a stage magician, whose wife Anna has fallen in love with another man, Crane (Creator/LionelBarrymore). When Crane tells Phroso that Anna is going away with him, they fight, and Phroso falls from a second-floor walkway and is paralyzed. Shortly thereafter Anna returns and promptly dies, leaving behind an infant daughter that Phroso takes possession of, planning to use her in his revenge. Many years later, Phroso establishes himself as the leader of an African tribe in the Congo's ivory country, where Crane is now working as an ivory trader. Phroso steals Crane's ivory, not because he cares about ivory, but to lure Crane to him so he can take revenge.

''West of Zanzibar'' was directed by Tod Browning, who later achieved fame directing horror films such as ''Film/Dracula1931'' and ''Film/{{Freaks}}''. It was an [[TheFilmOfThePlay adaptation of a stage play]] called ''Kongo'', and was remade in 1932 as the talking film ''Film/{{Kongo}}''.

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!!Tropes:
* AdaptationNameChange: Phroso is called Flint in the ''Kongo'' stage play and 1932 film.
* TheAlcoholic: It's not clear quite how long Maizie is held captive in Phroso's compound, but by the time Crane arrives, she is a jittering wreck of an alcoholic. A scene early in the film indicates that she apparently already had a drinking problem that she was attempting to quit.
* BestServedCold: Phroso's revenge plot involves waiting until Crane's lost daughter Maizie has reached adulthood, and bringing her into debauchery and alcoholism before presenting her to Crane as a ruined woman. The plan goes awry.
* ChekhovsSkill: Phroso's big magic trick, shown in the opening scene--putting his wife in a coffin, only to flip around the false bottom and reveal a skeleton--comes in handy at the end, when he uses it to facilitate Maizie's escape.
* TheChessmaster: Phroso manipulates almost every single character in the film as pawns in his grand revenge plan.
* DarkestAfrica: Played to the hilt--jungles, alligators, voodoo, and savage cannibal tribes.
* DeathByDespair: No explanation is given for why Anna keels over dead in the church, leaving Maizie in Phroso's clutches.
* EvilCripple: Phroso, who uses a wheelchair but also crawls around like a snake.
* EvilSlinks: Lon Chaney plays Phroso, who is paralyzed from the waist down. Sometimes he uses a wheelchair, but at other times he slithers around like a snake.
* HeelRealization: Phroso has this when he finds out that Maizie isn't Crane's daughter, she's his.
* HollywoodNatives: The East Africans, who wear grass skirts or short pants, decorate their dark skins with white facepaint, and speak in pidgin YouNoTakeCandle English.
-->'''Bumbu:''' "Me do like you say. Me tell white trader you steal ivory. Three days he be here."
* HumanSacrifice: Phroso's tribe practices a form of human sacrifice in which, after a man dies, his female relations (wife, daughters) are sacrificed along with him. This becomes important when Crane, whom the tribe believes to be Maizie's father, dies.
* MamasBabyPapasMaybe: Phroso assumes that Maizie is Crane's daughter. She isn't.
* MightyWhitey: A few magic tricks are all Phroso needs to gain leadership of the local cannibal tribe.
* RevealingHug: Anna's troubled look when Phroso embraces her from behind tells everything about the state of their marriage.
* RevengeThroughCorruption: Raising your enemy's daughter to be an alcoholic prostitute is certainly one way to go about it.
* TitleDrop: A title card reveals that Phroso is camped somewhere west of Zanzibar.
* YourSonAllAlong: Phroso spends years plotting to victimize poor Maizie, turning her into an alcoholic prostitute, only to discover that she's actually his daughter.

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