The Unknown (1927) [SD]
Channel: The Cinema Cellar
Date: 2023-07-04

'The Unknown is a 1927 American silent horror film directed by Tod Browning, and starring Lon Chaney as carnival knife thrower "Alonzo the Armless" and Joan Crawford as his beloved carnival girl Nanon. Originally titled Alonzo the Armless, filming took place from February 7 to March 18, 1927 on a $217,000 budget.

The film carried the tagline: "A superb mystery thriller, unusual and startling even for a Chaney film. Lon as "The Unknown" eats, drinks, shoots a rifle and dresses with his feet. Don't miss this startling spectacle!" Stills exist showing Chaney made up as Alonzo the Armless.

Cast
Lon Chaney as Alonzo the Armless
Norman Kerry as Malabar the Mighty
Joan Crawford as Nanon Zanzi (Estrellita in the original script)
Nick De Ruiz as Antonio Zanzi (Nanon's father)
John George as Cojo the dwarf
Frank Lanning as Costra
Polly Moran as Landlady (scenes deleted)
Bobbie Mack as Gypsy (scenes deleted)
Louise Emmons as Gypsy Woman (uncredited)
Julian Rivero as Man in Audience (uncredited)
Billy Seay as The Little Wolf (uncredited)
John St. Polis (John Sainpolis) as Surgeon (uncredited)
Italia and Venetia Frandi as undetermined
Tom Amandares as Gypsy
Paul Desmuke as Alonzo Body Double (uncredited)

Production
Browning’s genesis for the story emerged from his reflection upon an individual who suffers a multiple amputation of limbs and its dramatic personal repercussions. Browning describes this process beginning with the spectacle of traumatic disfigurement, rather than plot:

“The story writes itself after I have conceived the characters. The Unknown came to me after I had the idea of a man [Alonzo] without arms. I then asked myself what are the most amazing situations and actions that a man thus reduced could be involved...”

Actor and collaborator Chaney developed his characterization of Alonzo on the same premise: “I contrived to make myself look like an armless man, not simply to shock and horrify you but merely to bring to the screen a dramatic story of an armless man.”

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer originally sought to pair new Swedish property Greta Garbo with Chaney “the man of a thousand faces” who was emerging as the studio’s top box office draw in 1927, but the female lead went to the eighteen-year-old Joan Crawford, another M-G-M starlet.

Chaney did collaborative scenes with real-life armless double Paul Desmuke (sometimes credited as Peter Dismuki),[14] whose legs and feet were used to manipulate objects such as knives and cigarettes in frame with Chaney's upper body and face.

In the original screenplay, Alonzo murders both the doctor and Cojo to eliminate them as witnesses before he returns to claim Nanon, but these scenes never made it to the final print.

Critical appraisal
The Unknown is widely regarded as the most outstanding of the Browning-Chaney collaborations and a masterpiece of the late silent film era. Critic Scott Brogan regards The Unknown worthy of “cult status.”

It is considered the most unique and disturbing of the eight collaborations between Browning and Chaney at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Chaney’s rendering of character Alfonzo and the horrific self-mutilation he endures to win the love of Nanon is reminiscent of the theatre of the Grand Guignol.

Film historian Ken Hanke considers the film to be in many respects the best of Browning's films with Lon Chaney. Burt Lancaster said that Chaney's portrayal in The Unknown featured “one of the most compelling and emotionally exhausting scenes I have ever seen an actor do.” (referring to the scene where Chaney realizes he has cut off his arms in vain.)

It is listed in the film reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, which stated, "Drawing a remarkable and haunting performance from Chaney and filling the plot with twists and unforgettable characters, Browning here creates a chilling masterpiece of psychological (and psychosexual) drama."

"There is no gainsaying the fact that this story is exceptionally tense melodrama that grips the interest and fascinates the spectator, but it is decidedly gruesome. Chaney's large following, however, has been educated to expect him in such roles, and certainly he has never given a finer performance. The manner in which he is shown using his feet as normal persons do their hands is remarkably well done and his facial expressions are wonderful--he uses no eccentric make-up in this role." ---Moving Picture World

"Although it has strength and undoubtedly sustains the interest, THE UNKNOWN...is anything but a pleasant story. It is gruesome and at times shocking, and the principal character deteriorates from a more or less sympathetic individual to an arch-fiend...Mr. Chaney really gives a marvelous idea of the Armless Wonder, for to act in this film he has learned to use his feet as hands when eating, drinking and smoking. He even scratches his head with his toe when meditating." ---The New York Times'

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_(1927_film)