While scavenging for food among dead bodies during the Russian Revolution, a slow-witted peasant named Sergei (Lon Chaney) is hired by a desperate woman to guide her out of the carnage. In exchange for promises of friendship and a secure future, he endures torture to save her. The woman turns out to be a countess, the friendship and secure future become a degrading job in her kitchen and Sergei, inflamed by proletarian ideals, embraces violence. In a striking performance, Chaney proves he doesn't need prosthetics or bizarre makeup to create a visceral screen experience. Although Mockery made money, its star returned to horror for his next film, donning vampire makeup for London After Midnight.

One of the rare American films directed by Danish auteur Benjamin Christensen, MOCKERY stars Lon Chaney Sr. as a half-witted Russian peasant. On the verge of starvation, Chaney is hired to guide a beautiful countess (Barbara Bedford) through the treacherous Siberian wastes. Once he arrives at the countess' home territory, Chaney is swept up by the Bolshevik movement. He comes to despise the aristocracy in general and the countess in particular, but the young woman's kindness towards him weakens his revolutionary resolve. Long thought lost, MOCKERY was rediscovered and preserved in the mid-1970s; the film was based on a story by Stig Esbern.