The Unknown
1927 · 68 min · US
Directed by Tod Browning
Tod Browning, MGM, 1927. Lon Chaney is Alonzo, a circus knife-thrower who hides his arms because the police want a man with two thumbs on one hand. Joan Crawford is Nanon, who cannot bear to be touched by a man’s hands. He has a surgeon do the obvious, irreversible thing so he can marry her. The AFI lists sixty-eight minutes. Chaney throws with his feet. Crawford, not yet the MGM mask, plays disgust as a bodily fact. The title is the name on the wagon. The last reel is about what he gave away.
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In Tod Browning's Underworld · Lon Chaney: The Man of a Thousand Faces
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