Jon Mirsalis on Piano. Of all his bizarre roles and peculiar makeup jobs, Chaney's performance in The Penalty remains one of the most fascinating and chilling; it may very well be his finest film. He stars as "Blizzard," a gangster leader who had his leg amputated as a boy and spends his adult life planning revenge on the doctor who maimed him, while plotting to loot all of San Francisco! Only a few minutes of film could be shot at a time before Chaney had to be taken out of his leg straps-one of many such painful roles that he would endure throughout his career. While his later grotesque roles, particularly in some of the Browning films, were the only strong points of otherwise weak pictures, Chaney is only one of many fine touches in this rich, utterly captivating melodrama. Underground arsenals, secret passages, drug addicts, and an almost kinky love story are just a few of the backdrops to this beautifully directed little masterpiece.-Jon Mirsalis