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Tod Browning, MGM, 1925. Lon Chaney is Echo, a ventriloquist who disguises himself as Mrs. O’Grady, a bird-shop granny, with strongman Hercule (Victor McLaglen) and Tweedledee (Harry Earles) as the infant in the pram. They case houses; Mae Busch is the pickpocket who works with them. It was Browning and Chaney’s biggest commercial pairing and the template for the later sideshow crime pictures. Chaney remade it with sound in 1930, his only talkie, swearing five of the voices were his. The baby carriage is not a joke to the people inside the shop.
In two programmes
Echo in a dress. Chaney as a bird-shop granny, McLaglen as the strongman, Harry Earles as the infant in the pram, and Mae Busch working the marks. Their biggest hit together and the template for the rest. Watch the pram, and watch who is watching it.
Lon Chaney: The Man of a Thousand Faces
Echo in a dress. A ventriloquist as a bird-shop granny, a strongman, and Harry Earles in a pram. Their biggest hit together, and the only picture he remade with sound, swearing five of the voices were his. Watch the granny's hands. The disguise is a performance of harmlessness.
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