The Road to Mandalay is a 1926 American silent drama film directed by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney, Owen Moore, and Lois Moran.

It was written by Elliott Clawson (with Joseph Farmham doing the intertitles), based on a story idea by Tod Browning and Herman Mankiewicz.

[1][2] Originally a 7-reel feature, the film was considered lost until a 9.5mm abridged version, of about 35 minutes, with French intertitles surfaced in Paris and was transferred to 16mm.

"[4] Dr. Hugo Kiefer, a Los Angeles optician, designed the white glass contact lens that Chaney wore to simulate the blind eye.

[5][6] Singapore Joe (Lon Chaney) is a captain on board a ship bound for Mandalay with his wife, who lies gravely ill in her cabin.

His wife dies giving birth to a daughter, and the Captain leaves the child in the care of his brother Father James, a priest who raises the girl as his own.

Twenty years pass, and the captain is now a hardened criminal with a blind eye who runs a Singapore brothel along with a vile Chinese associate named English Charlie Wing (Kamiyama Sojin).

Joe tells Father James that he is thinking of cleaning up his act, and wants to turn over a new leaf and take his daughter away to start a new life together, but the priest warns him that he already has too many sins on his soul weighing him down.

Joe learns that his daughter is planning to get married, and on the day of the wedding, he sneaks inside the church, and is shocked to find that her intended husband-to-be is "The Admiral".

--- The New York Times[4] "Not much as a story, but lifted to melodramatic interest by the highly colored performance of Lon Chaney as Singapore Joe.

He appears as a one-eyed derelict of Singapore who rises from the depths only whenever he comes in contact with his pure and undefiled offspring....a girl reared in the sanctuary of sweetness and light."

"A powerful, vivid story of the derelict sea captain who wins redemption in a blazing moment of drama after years of crime!"