The Unknown - 1927

Obsession. Sadism. Phobia. Panic. We’re going to slide into Halloween this week with some monsters. With all due respect to fans of movies about zombies, vampires, and werewolves, those creatures aren’t real. (The Easter Bunny is real. So is the Tooth Fairy. And leprechauns, they’re real.)

When the ancient Celts marked the Samhain, it was as a kind of Twilight Zone portal into the Other World. How it got to be about gory movies and snack-size Snickers bars these days is a matter for someone else to tackle.  I’m more interested in that portal, psychologically speaking, and the two films we cover this week are rife with human beings on the edge of madness. Being human is what causes their madness. This is what is most terrifying about it.

Today we have The Unknown (1927), a silent Lon Chaney masterpiece where “The Man of a Thousand Faces” uses only his own magnificent, weathered, sensitive face to show us the very picture of a man morphed into a monster by his obsession.

On Thursday, the portal to another world leads us into desert ghost town, a killer terrorizing his unlucky captives, while an atomic bomb is about to be tested just outside the tumbleweed-strewn main street in Split Second (1953).

Both scenarios are every bit as weird and grotesque as a “monster” movie, but what distinguishes them is that humanity (even more than the lack of it) is the focus, yet these films have the funhouse mirror effect of distorted reality. The acting, writing, and directing is superior.

The Unknown, directed by Tod Browning, takes us to a Gypsy circus in Spain. They are outcasts from the start, by virtue of their being Gypsies and by being circus performers. Some, however, are more outcast than others.

Lon Chaney is Alonzo the Armless. Director Browning would later explore sideshow performers in his famous Freaks (1932). Here, Chaney and his assistant played by John George, a little person who appeared in many films, represent the physical freaks in the circus. Mr. Chaney has a knife-throwing act. He clutches the knives in his bare toes and flings them at the target.

Joan Crawford is his target. She is the circus owner’s daughter. Only 22 years old, Miss Crawford had already made a slew of silent films in the previous two years and was well on her way to stardom. She later credited her work with Lon Chaney in this film for teaching her a lot about acting.

Lon Chaney was undoubtedly a great example for young actors in silent film. He is mesmerizing in this role, not merely what he does physically -- which as always is remarkable, but what he conveys with his facial expressions is so riveting. He is compelling, heartbreaking, and frightening.

Lon is in love with Joan, is obsessed by her. She is drawn to him because of his passivity and gentleness, represented for her by his having no arms. She is afraid of other men, and being in the position of the beautiful young Gypsy girl, has the unfortunate problem of always getting pawed over by them. She cuddles up to Lon, comfortable in the knowledge he cannot grab her. It’s an interesting way to illustrate she is afraid of sex and he is okay because he is sexless.

Though part of his act is to undress her every performance by shooting her clothes off with a gun.

Norman Kerry, who plays the circus strongman, is also in love with Joan, but he lacks the gentleness and moreover, the cleverness of Chaney to get very far with her. Besides, he has these two strong hands that are always reaching for her, which creeps her out.

In a brutal scene, Joan’s circus owner father beats up Lon, because he wants his daughter to get over her phobia and stop hanging around with circus freaks. He doesn’t want Lon encouraging her friendship. Lon cannot fight back. Norman Kerry comes to his rescue. Lon’s duplicitous expression here, smiling through gritted teeth, is really something. He hates Kerry, his romantic rival, with a passion, but acts the humble, grateful, helpless victim.

Norman Kerry is one of the most handsome men in silents. My gosh, that smile.

When the others have left, Lon’s helper Mr. George undresses him. With Lon’s back to the camera, we see…

Oh, by the way, there’s spoilers coming up. Go outside and sit in the car if you don’t want to know. But don’t play with the radio. It’s right at the station I want.

Now then, with Lon’s back to the camera, his shirt lifted, we see he is wearing an enormous leather corset. John George begins to unlace it. When the cumbersome cocoon is pulled away, we see two, white, snake-like appendages emerge, writhing, from Chaney’s torso.

Oh, lord, they’re arms.

He’s not armless. Only Lon Chaney could make something as completely normal as having arms look grotesque and sickening.

After the initial surprise, this begs the question, why does he hide his arms? It’s a bit much to go through for a circus act gimmick. But, there is more to Lon than the passive, pitiful deformed man. He is not passive, but a manipulative schemer. He is a thief, who hides in the circus that travels from town to town. The police are not searching for a man with no arms.

But Lon is not without a physical deformity. On his left hand, he has a double thumb. Taking his revenge on the mean circus owner, and to clear his way to get Joan for himself, Lon strangles her father. She sees the figure of a man with two thumbs on his left hand committing the horrid act, but she never gets to see Lon’s face.

Now the police are looking for a killer with two thumbs. More than ever, Lon needs to continue his armless act.

Norman Kerry is becoming more amorous, and Joan is clinging to Lon as a safe haven. It is Mr. George who warns Lon that he must never let Joan get close to him, for she eventually will, in the intimacy he hopes for, discover his arms, his thumbs, and who he really is.

Lon is crushed, and struggles with this problem. A terrific scene where he sits smoking a cigarette held in his toes, even though his arms are free. John George kids him about being so accustomed to using his feet that he sometimes forgets he has arms.

How much of Chaney’s work in this film grasping objects, wiping his face with a handkerchief -- all done with his feet is done by his own ability to contort his body and how much is done with the help of a stunt double I’m not sure. A double was indeed used to help, but I don’t know in which scenes that occurs.

Then the solution comes to Lon, and we see in his expressive dark eyes the obsession has turned to madness.

He blackmails a disreputable doctor to amputate his arms.

While he is away having this little bit of cosmetic surgery, Norman Kerry has learned that patience is a virtue. His respectful, not to say hands-off, treatment of Joan has won her heart. She is over her fear of men, and they welcome Lon back to the circus with the good news that they are going to be married. Kerry’s arms are wrapped around Joan. She holds one of his hands against her chest and kisses it.

This is the scene you want to see. Lon’s frozen-faced reaction, his ghastly forced grin, his tearing eyes, and a gasping, howling (yeah, I know it’s silent) descent into psychological hell. It’s as fine a few minutes of pantomime as ever was filmed.

But, wait, there’s more.

Mr. Kerry has a new act where he shows his strongman stuff pulling two horses made to run in opposite directions. He shows Lon how it works in rehearsal. Lon plans to rig it so that Norman Kerry’s arms get ripped off. Will it work? Here’s a link to the movie, now in public domain, on YouTube (in five parts). Go watch this creepy portal into the Other World where cherished dreams are entrapped by filthy nightmares. Very human stuff.

Come back Thursday for this post on Split Second and a terrific ensemble cast of brutal killers, unlucky misfits, adulterous schemers, a dame down on her luck, and a reporter looking for the story of the century all trapped in a portal to Armageddon one evil night.

Lon Chaney

Lon Chaney has the remarkable distinction of being a character actor who was, at the same time, a star. We are accustomed to thinking of film actors as one or the other, particularly in the regimented caste system of Hollywood’s heyday, but Chaney transcended that. He did this by being one of the finest actors of his generation.

Known as “The Man of a Thousand Faces” and using his talent as a makeup artist to create vivid screen monsters, Chaney was also an actor of intense charisma, capable of showing profound depth of emotion.

His ability to convey emotions deftly on the silent screen is sometimes attributed to his being the son of deaf parents, where pantomime was communication at home. He learned about the transforming magic of makeup, wardrobe, and even dance and choreography on the vaudeville circuit, and eventually made his way by 1914 to the first Hollywood studio, Nestor, on Sunset and Gower Streets (which later became Gower Gulch). He moved on to Universal where he made over 100 films, most of which are now lost. According to an American Masters documentary on PBS on Chaney, Universal simply recycled the old films for the chemicals.

By 1919, we see Mr. Chaney in “The Miracle Man” as a scam artist pretending to be crippled with a contorted body and then pretending to be cured. He plays a Chinese character in “Shadows” (1922), Fagin in “Oliver Twist” and the famous “Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1923). The pitiable scene where Esmeralda gives him water after he is whipped is powerful, and we see a pattern of Chaney’s playing tortured souls beneath the tortuous faces. Especially, there is a pattern of Chaney’s playing a character in love with a girl who loves someone else.

However, his characters are not always sympathetic, and never ask for pity. In “He Who Gets Slapped” (1924) his character is a man out for revenge, a twisted and somewhat grotesque soul who nevertheless has our sympathy when his declaration of love is laughed at by Norma Shearer, who honestly believes him to be kidding.

In “The Unholy Three” (1925), he plays a ventriloquist and a con-man who also pretends to be an old lady to pull off a scam. This film was remade as a sound film in 1930, and was Chaney’s last film before he died. His pinnacle was probably “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925) (see blog entry April 24, 2007) which continues his characterization of figures who are grotesque, as inwardly as they are outwardly, and yet pull at our conscience and our sympathy.

One film, “Tell it to the Marines” (1927) in which he plays a Marine sergeant, is done without makeup and is a departure from his normal characters, but without the makeup we see the strength and power of his acting.

A truly grotesque story is the “The Unknown” (1927) in which he plays a circus knife thrower in love with a young Joan Crawford. He has a congenital defect, possessing double thumbs on his hands, but for his act he pretends to be armless, throwing knives with his feet. When he commits murder and realizes he can be identified by his abnormal hands, he blackmails a doctor into actually removing his arms. However, Joan Crawford still falls in love with Norman Kerry anyway, and the look on Chaney’s face when he realizes he has amputated his arms for nothing is shocking. Mr. Chaney’s frozen, icy, not-quite-a-smile suggesting, “Oh, I’m so happy for you two,” while at the same time being hit with the burden of being an armless man for the rest of his life is so stunning it is almost frightening. He does not need to have horrible makeup to convey horror to us. The characters Mr. Chaney plays are often damned, and they seem always to damn themselves.

That’s it for this week. See you Monday.

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