People don’t always get what they deserve in real life but just desserts have often been served at the movies and this month’s theme explores such portrayals in the silent era.
These aren’t always revenge films, though revenge sometimes plays a role. Maybe it’s conscience, maybe it’s coincidence, maybe it is being hoist on their own petard, maybe it is active vengeance but these movies will cover somebody getting what is coming to them.
Director Irvin Willat enjoyed portraying such events in his films, with active revenge in Behind the Door and an act of god in Below the Surface. The story of Ben-Hur is probably famous enough for me to confide that he who fights by the chariot dies by the chariot. In The Whispering Chorus, a man fakes his own death and adopts a new identity to escape punishment for embezzlement and then finds himself on trial for his own murder.
Comedies frequently played with the concept of just desserts. For example, Mr. Flip features a masher being terrorized by the women he hoped to harass. Ford Sterling’s obnoxious attempts to drive off a rival suitor for Mabel Normand’s hand backfires in A Muddy Romance.
I hope you will enjoy this month of justice, or at least justice in the eyes of the filmmakers.
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Movies Silently 
Just a nitpick: “Deserts,” meaning something you deserve, is spelled with one “s” even though it’s pronounced like “desserts” and not like the word for a wasteland. Unless, of course, it’s a nice piece of pie, which is surely a dessert you deserve.
Rod La Rocque got a “Devine Justice” in The Ten Commandments (’23). in Blood And Sand (’22) Rudolph Valentino and the outlaw character both got what they deserve, one because of his cruelty toward animals (bulls) the other toward human beings…which actually was the main topic of the film (from my point of view). Idk but maybe Lon Chaney in most of his films (especially those MGM ones) fit in this theme. Don’t let me forget GREED (the most depressing film I’ve ever watched), everyone in it got their share of a horrible ending and act of justice in way or another because of their horrendous decisions and foolish acts…i was glad about it because no one in it deserved any sympathy… Poor Greta Garbo got ugly (and i think they’re sexist) endings because they were “bad girls” or “vamp” and, she deserved it in the eyes of the filmmakers, especially in Flesh And The Devil and The Temptress. Idk if my choices and what come to my mind fit this theme…but here they are.
I want to add that i really enjoy your page, it’s my (almost) only source for silent films especially here in the far in Iraq… Keep going …
Thank you so much!