The Unknown

This is a truly spellbinding movie, one of the more bizarre you are likely to see. With Lon Chaney hiding from the law pretending to be an armless circus performer. Joan Crawford is stunningly beautiful as Nanon, the girl he loves. A well done serpentine story that tells more in under an hour than most films made today can tell in two hours. Chaney is the best film actor of all time, he really was the man of a thousand faces. It is a shame that some Browning/Chaney films have been lost forever, but this is one that should be watched by all, it is fantastic.

Tod Browning is one of the great mysteries of film history. His life story is filled with contradictions (some he created himself). No one argues the fact that he was the architect of the classic American horror film Dracula (1931), with Bela Lugosi as Dracula. His success is one that is grounded in his macabre but decidedly non-supernatural silent works. Beyond that the story gets cloudy. The "official" line is that he went on to make Freaks (1932) and the results were so horrific that it virtually destroyed his career, making the studio keep a tight rein on his subsequent genre efforts.

At the top of the list for strangeness is The Unknown (1927), one of the great silent films of all time. It was also one of the most offbeat psychological dramas ever produced by a major studio, especially one such as MGM. The collaboration between director/writer Tod Browning, himself a one time circus performer, and the intense performance by Lon Chaney, was a thing of magic.

The focus of the story is Alonzo (Lon Chaney) is an armless knife-thrower in a gypsy circus, known as "Alonzo, The Armless Wonder." He's really not armless, but has his arms strapped to his sides to appear limbless since he wishes to hide his identity from the cops. He's a career criminal on the run who with his cohort Cojo (John George), and continues to commit robberies while touring with the circus. Cojo is the only one who knows his secret and is the only friend he has. Alonzo is able to fling the knives with the toes of his feet, and his assistant Nano (Joan Crawford) is the target. She's the beautiful daughter of the circus owner and ringmaster, Zanzi (Nick de Ruiz).

Alonzo has become obsessed with Nano, and would do anything in the world for her love. He would also, he tells Cojo, do anything he could to someone who takes her away from him. Nano has a bit of a psychological problem, she can't stand any man who puts their arms around her or who tries to touch her. She feels very safe with Alonzo and they develop an affectionate bond of friendship, where she feels good hugging him. The circus strongman Malabar (Kerry) also compulsively loves her and won't take no for an answer, but he keeps putting his arms around her as she pushes him away.

Zanzi doesn't trust Alonzo and when he sees his daughter alone with him again, his anger builds because he feels he is putting "ideas" in his daughter's head. In a fit of rage he beats Alonzo with a whip until Malabar puts a stop to it and receives the thanks of Alonzo. But one evening Zanzi again confronts Alonzo, this time in the dark shadows nearby Nano's wagon and he notices that Alonzo has arms. This causes Alonzo to strangle him to death, but Nano could only see that the strangler had two thumbs on one hand.

Realizing that he can't marry her if he has arms, Alonzo decides to have them cut off. Alonzo blackmails a doctor (Lanning) into doing the procedure. But when he returns to see Nano, she tells him that she overcame her fear of having a man put her arms around her and will marry Malabar. The scene in this film when he realizes that he's cut off his arms for nothing is one of the most emotional in all of silent film (perhaps all of film), and it consists mostly of a closeup of his face as the horrible irony registers. Chaney's performance, and maybe our instinctive support of the underdog, has the odd effect of making you hope that he wins in the end, even though he's a murderer and he plots to have Malabar's arms ripped from his body by horses.

We get a glimpse of the pain that Chaney must have felt with his arms strapped to his chest day after day on the set. Mirroring that is a scene when he distractedly lights a cigarette with his feet, an intricate process that was aided by Peter Dismuki, a real armless man who served as a stunt double for many of Chaney's actions. Cojo (John George), Alonzo's dwarf assistant, looks on with growing mirth until he bursts out, reminding Alonzo that his arms aren't bound.

In the late silent period, filmmakers were advancing their art at an astonishing pace. Over at Fox, F.W. Murnau was making the most elegant of all silent films, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, which seemingly liberated the camera from gravity and demonstrated breathtaking in-camera optical effects. Browning and cinematographer Merritt B. Gerstad were not so precocious, but their experiments with filters and camera placement are nearly as intriguing. In a beautifully composed scene, Nanon grieves over her father's death and struggles between her love for the strongman Malabar and her fear of his hands; Malabar enters the room and confesses his undying love for her and his willingness to wait until her fear subsides. The shots are filmed through a heavy gauze that gives the entire composition the look of an oil painting with visible brushwork; it adds a softness and an intimacy that's similar to the effect later directors desired when they used soft-focus closeups of smiling women's faces, but there's nothing silly about its use here.

With that being said, Lon Chaney always played wild, scary and intriguing roles that garnered our pity and our sympathies no matter how horrifying they were. Part of the reason is because Chaney could play the agony of unrequited love like nobody else. His ability to lose the girl, when the movie hero would usually win her, was remarkably heartbreaking. This is just one reason why Chaney made an indelible impression on the history of cinema. The other was that he had a creepy presence on screen – even when he played the good guy.

A circus performer ventures into THE UNKNOWN regions of fate when he allows love to be twisted by hatred.

Master actor Lon Chaney and his friend, acclaimed director Tod Browning, took their love of the macabre and fashioned this weirdly entertaining & suspenseful little silent film, made wonderful by Chaney's powerful over-the-top performance. Playing the armless wonder in a gypsy circus, Chaney's face is a casebook of emotions as he longs for the chieftain's daughter. After making a tremendous, indeed, outrageous, sacrifice for her, he discovers it is all an utter waste. Chaney's agony is horribly apparent as he feels his life crumble around him. The actor uses his superb physical conditioning to great effect, his feet as facile as any hands--the extreme punishment undergone to play the part enormously impressive.

In an important early film role, Joan Crawford is both sultry & disarming as the object of Chaney's desires; her intense neurotic phobia concerning men's hands certainly makes her character more interesting. Norman Kerry is affable & tender as the circus strong man who also loves Crawford. John George as Chaney's dwarf accomplice and Nick De Ruiz as the brutal circus chief are quite effective in their colorful roles.

MGM gave the film fine production values, especially in the circus scenes--a milieu dear to Chaney's heart.

I've heard so much about this movie, and it was not a disappointment. The surviving print seems to be missing some scenes, which accounts for its short length, but I doubt it takes away much from this twisted, sadistic "Gift of the Magi" gone bad. Chaney's performance is remarkable and, at times, genuinely alarming, and the very young Joan Crawford is a typical, but nevertheless appealing silent film heroine. Parts of this film really had me squirming, particularly towards the end. Browning's visual sense is the most beautiful I've seen in any of his films other than Dracula, with a full range of greys, whites and blacks and painterly compositions. It's available on TCM's excellent Lon Chaney Collection DVD.

"The Unknown" has to have one of the strangest plots of any movie I've seen, but I can't describe it without spoiling it. Suffice to say; coming from the mind of Tod Browning who set the story in a traveling carnival, you know it's going to be delving into some heavy weirdness.

"The Unknown" is a silent film starring Lon Chaney, Sr., as carnival star Alonzo the Armless, an expert with gun and knife, who, because of his condition, must use his feet instead of hands. His assistant and unrequited love interest is Nanon, played by a very young and beautiful Joan Crawford. There's a love triangle between these two and the carnival strong man, and oh, what Alonzo won't do to win his ladylove.

My only regret is that I saw the 49-minute version taped off of Turner Classic Movies, and the movie does go by quickly. Short as it is though, it's a weird and entertaining trip.