The Unknown (1927)

Only the silent cinema could have created such a bizarre but at the same time thoroughly believable and engrossing portrait of doomed love as The Unknown. If Lon Chaney had been able to put his feelings into words, or if Joan Crawford's strange phobia concerning male appendages had been audibly discussed, The Unknown would probably have been laughed off the screen. But in the more ethereal atmosphere of the mute theater, such florid behavior seems acceptable, perhaps even logical. Chaney was never better than when under the direction of director Tod Browning, who once again drew mightily on his own carnival background to create a world that both fascinates and repels. The reviewers at the time were often more repelled than fascinated, the prudish Harrison's Reports denouncing the Chaney-Browning morality play as "a gruesome and unpleasant picture." And The Unknown may actually still be capable of shocking even a modern audience raised on truly gruesome and unpleasant pictures. Not with blood and gore -- there isn't any -- but by the mere idea of a man willing to sacrifice his limbs for the sake of an overpowering desire. It is a cruel joke screenwriter Waldemar Young pulled on Lon Chaney, however. For the fickle Miss Crawford readily overcomes her bizarre phobia once she discovers that being embraced by Norman Kerry isn't all that bad after all. But then it is all too late for Mr. Chaney's beast, who once again is slain by beauty. To flesh out his demented sideshow attraction, Chaney was offered a bit of assistance from armless wonder Dismuki. Drafted from the Al G. Barnes Circus and Sideshow, this real-life "freak" supplied Chaney's nimble footwork and would later bill himself "The Man Who Doubled Lon Chaney's Feet." Still and all, it is Chaney's intense personality more than his feet or supposedly missing limbs that demands our attention and the role becomes yet another fascinating tour-de-force for an actor who truly deserves his more recent re-discovery. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide