The Unknown (1927) Tod Browning, Lon Chaney

lester1/2jr · June 27, 2007, 03:05:58 PM

I 'm not sure why this movie is called "the unknown" but it was pretty good. definately accesible to those who aren't real in to silent movies, like myself. Not quite on par with Brownings "Freaks" or Fritz langs Metropolis, but dark and clever enough to not be boring.

Chaney plays an armless knife tosser! in a gypsy circus who's in love with the lady he throws the knives at (or rather, throws the knives toward). i can see how one could become attached when you have an intense partnership like that. She has a soft spot for him because men are always pawing at her and of course he has no arms so that solves that. But then, he has a dark side she doesn't know about....

the dvd also came with a cool documentary about Chaney as well as what is left of "London after Midnight" which is to say, not much. a bunch of stills basically. alot of Chaneys movies have been destroyed, apparently because of the silver they used in the film back then or something?

Doc Daneeka · June 27, 2007, 03:20:39 PM

==Spoiler: highlight to read better==
It's called The Unknown because the woman didn't know the only man she really respected really did possess the physical characteristic she feared.

akiratubo · June 28, 2007, 01:54:38 AM

==Even more spoiler (highlight)==
It's called The Unknown because the woman didn't know the only man she really respected really did possess the physical characteristic she feared ... or at least he did at first.

RCMerchant · June 28, 2007, 05:12:40 AM

Hee Hee! More invisable ink writing!!! I'm Agent Napoleon!

I'm gonna try:I gotta get out more often

Raffine · June 29, 2007, 12:59:11 PM

Sort of OT, but TCM is airing the 1928 Browning/Chaney film WEST OF ZANZIBAR tonight at 1:00 AM CT. It's never been officially released on VHS or DVD, and it's supposed to be their most outrageous and depraved film. Featuring Lionel Barrymore and Tiny Ward as "Tiny".

This is followed by the original silent version of their THE UNHOLY THREE (1925). With FREAKS' Harry Earles. This one has never been released officially on VHS or DVD, either. TCM really needs to do a follow-up release to their Lon Chaney Collection.

After that (a great night for TCM) is Carl T. Dreyer's 1932 VAMPYR - DER TRAUM DES ALLAN GREY, still the creepiest vampire film ever. Image has a fair DVD (Bonus! It includes the full-length version of Starewicz' THE MASCOT!) but rumor has it a greatly improved quality DVD is in the works.
Maybe that's what TCM is showing tonight, but it's probably the same old battered print with the obnoxiously HUGE subtitles.

lester1/2jr · June 30, 2007, 08:54:16 AM

aah. is that tonight like tonight or yesterday?

telegonus · July 01, 2007, 01:48:01 AM

The Unknown is a remarkable film, almost deceptive in its creepiness, it might almost be called The Uncanny, which is the strongest feeling I get from it. So many things are secret or hidden in the film, or else lied about, or acted out, or not understood fully, it's like a tragedy of manners. Then there's the whole Browning-Chaney mutilation fetish thing right smack in the middle of the story. It's quite unsettling psychologically, maybe because it deals with (so-called) normal people. I see it as in some ways a dry run for Freaks, in terms of its European circus setting, the normal vs. abnormal issue, physically and psychologically, the mutilation, and, for all its outre aspects its basically sober, realistic depiction of just how nasty life can be for people who suffer miserably, as Alonzo does, for whatever reason, leaving aside whose fault it is, free will and all the rest. There's an underlying compassion in the film, not in the story, which is horribly, ironically cruel, but in the way issues are presented. I think it's a major film. Weird, but very important.

lester1/2jr · July 01, 2007, 03:53:19 PM

why didn't he just have his extra thumb amputated? that was the only thing that had him pegged as the strangler

telegonus · July 02, 2007, 01:18:59 AM

Quote from: lester1/2jr on July 01, 2007, 03:53:19 PM
why didn't he just have his extra thumb amputated? that was the only thing that had him pegged as the strangler

I think it was more complicated than Chaney being the murder suspect. He was in love with Crawford and she had an "arm thing", a phobia of some kind, and I believe that Chaney wanted to her to love him, thus he went through the makeover so as to be truly armless rather than simply seem that way. As luck would have it, by the time he returned to the scene Crawford's phobia had vanished and she had a two-armed lover, leaving poor Lon an armless, unloved murderer, so he does the sensible thing and arranges to have her lover's arms ripped out by a machine! Well, it is a Tod Browning picture...

lester1/2jr · July 02, 2007, 10:14:22 AM

the extra thumbthing was superflous then wasn't it?

telegonus · July 02, 2007, 06:30:42 PM

Quote from: lester1/2jr on July 02, 2007, 10:14:22 AM
the extra thumbthing was superflous then wasn't it?

I know what you're saying but I think the thumb thing was a kind of primitive Freudian notion on Browning's (or Chaney's) part, putting the plot in an even weirder light, with the double thumb a phallic symbol, hence Alonzo's need to keep it hidden, indeed tp create the armless variety act in the first place. That Crawford had an arm (or arms) phobia made her all the more attractive to the somewhat but not overly freakish Alonzo, who no doubt had issues of his own. I think that the murder subplot was a melodramatic device to keep the viewer interested. My sense is that Alonzo was sufficiently smitten with the phobic young woman that he would have had his arms severed just to please her, murder or no murder. In my mind, the movie resonates as a very strange tale of obsession, mutilation and revenge, and it's the strong emotions that it elicits, in me anyway, that make it so memorable.