Outside the Law is a 1920 American pre-Code crime film produced, directed and co-written by Tod Browning and starring Priscilla Dean, Lon Chaney and Wheeler Oakman.

[1][2] One of a series of Universal Pictures vehicles produced for Priscilla Dean, Outside the Law features Lon Chaney in dual supporting roles and his second pairing with director Tod Browning.

[8] The film was gently reedited (a few of Chaney's scenes as "Ah Wing" were cut) and reissued theatrically in 1926, and this is the print that is available today on dvd.

A musical score was prepared by Dr. Edward Kilenyi for the 1926 reissue, and an "elaborate atmospheric presentation" of the film was arranged by German director Paul Leni.

[9][10][11] Silent Madden, a criminal leader in San Francisco, and his gangster daughter Molly (Priscilla Dean) have forsaken a life of crime after receiving counsel from Chang Lo, a Confucianist philosopher living in Chinatown.

The contrasting dual roles Browning wrote for Chaney as a heroic Chinese servant and an evil gangster are considered to have solidified the long-lasting collaboration between the two.

It is not the inspired symbology of the cross alone, but the prophecy of Chang Lo that frames the outcome.”[16][17]Film critic Alec Charles remarks upon the significance of the “cross-kite” imagery that may foreshadow Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein’s use of crucifix configurations in Battleship Potemkin (1925) where two condemned sailors hang from the yardarms: “Five years earlier than Eisenstein, Browning had employed a similar piece of [Christian] symbolism (in the form of a shattered kite) suggesting that the film’s two thieves [Dapper Bill and Silky Molly] might, in a squalid, broken and unglamorous way, find their own salvation...and escape the fate of [crucifixion]...the possibility of advancing an athletic comparison...authorizes a reading of Browning’s discontinuities as intentional [and] anticipating Eisenstein…”[18]The original print of Outside the Law was considerably longer in its original 1920 release.

The newly found print was the 1926 re-release of the film by Universal after Chaney and Browning had moved over to MGM and achieved greater stardom.

---Exhibitors Trade Review "Lon Chaney plays the role of the arch-criminal 'Black Mike' Sylva, and also interpolates an interesting Chinese part.

Half a dozen lives are blotted out in less time than it takes to write about it, and those who have used their pistols efficiently either smile, continue the story they were telling or go on with the crap game.

---The New York Times (reviewing the 1926 reissue) "Mr. Browning did the job well, very well, in all particulars, turning out a Universal that can stand up on the billing....Chaney though makes his "Blackie" sneaky role so vicious, he throws the house right into the young couple's laps."