The Shock is a 1923 American silent drama film (a Universal Jewel) directed by Lambert Hillyer and starring Lon Chaney as a disabled man named Wilse Dilling.

[1] The film was written by Arthur Statter and Charles Kenyon, based on a magazine story by William Dudley Pelley.

When Wilse meets with her, she sends him to the suburban town of Fallbrook, where he is to establish himself and await her instructions in dealing with a former lover of hers, a banker named Micha Hadley (William Welsh), who had once betrayed her.

Being dependent on crutches and a wheelchair has not stopped Dilling from committing a lengthy series of crimes, but to his surprise, he finds that the small town atmosphere makes him feel alive for the first time.

Dilling's new-found contentment is soon shattered by a series of new developments which includes trying to stop Queen Ann's plot against both Hadley and Gertrude.

When Dilling attempts to blow up the bank to cover up the evidence against Hadley, it goes badly and Gertrude and her fiance Cooper are caught in the blast.

[7] Principal photography on The Shock took place in June 1922, after Chaney finished work as Fagin on Oliver Twist (1922) in late May 1922.

[8] "In affording Lon Chaney one of the spectacular characterizations for which he has shown an aptitude, Universal has achieved a striking success in THE SHOCK...For his followers the production will most likely have an intense appeal... At times his extreme physical deformity and resulting contortion are rather harrowing.