This elegant symmetrical story line is both formally pleasing and the source of suspense and gags; but the voyage also lends the film an epic tone which, combined with Keatons customarily meticulous historical detail, transforms it into perhaps the finest Civil War movie ever made. Then, finally, there is Busters Johnny: unsmiling yet beautiful in his brave, faintly ridiculous determinationthe epitome of this serio-comic masterpiece, and as deeply human a hero as the cinema has given us. GA
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1920s
THE UNKNOWN (1927)
U.S. (MGM) 65m Silent BW
Director: Tod Browning
Screenplay: Tod Browning, Waldemar Young
Photography: Merritt B. Gerstad
Cast: Lon Chaney, Norman Kerry, Joan Crawford, Nick De Ruiz, John George, Frank Lanning, Polly Moran
Best known for directing Bela Lugosi in the 1931 Universal horror classic Dracula (1931), and most notorious for his 1932 oddity Freaks, circus performer-turned-filmmaker Tod Brownings all-around greatest film is The
Unknown. The film is an under-appreciated silent-era gem starring the writer-directors favorite (and most famous) actor, the so-called Man of a Thousand Faces, Lon Chaney.
Well known and greatly admired for the physical pain he would regularly endure playing physically disabled antagonists or antiheroes, Chaney here outdoes himself as Alonzo, a criminal with an extra thumb on one hand who seeks to avoid capture by pretending to be an armless knife-thrower in a gypsy-run circus. The armless gig at first has an additional benefit, as Alonzos beautiful assistant Nanon (Joan Crawford in one of her earliest leads), daughter of the circus owner, cannot stand being embraced by menin particular the chief competition with Alonzo for her affections, weight-lifting strongman Malabar the Mighty (Norman Kerry).
After Nanons father accidentally sees his arms, Alonzo murders him in order to keep the secret from getting out. Nanon, meanwhile, catches a glimpse of the killers double thumb without seeing his face. Obsessed with Nanon, distraught over the possibility that she will eventually discover his true identity, Alonzo dismisses the objections of his dwarf assistant Cojo (John George) and has his arms surgically amputated. But in one of The Unknowns most delicious and disturbing ironies, when Alonzo returns to the circus after a lengthy convalescence, he finds that Nanon has gotten over her phobia of being held, and has fallen head over heels for Malabar.
Seeking poetic justice (or just garden-variety revenge) for this ultra-cruel twist of fate, the now truly armless Alonzo attempts to rig Malabars latest circus actin which the strongman ties his arms to a pair of horses, each one pulling in the opposite directionso that his rival will end up armless as well. However, his scheme is foiled at the last second, and Alonzo himself gets killed saving Nanon from being trampled by one of the horses.
Drawing a remarkable and haunting performance from Chaney and filling the plot with striking twists and unforgettable characters, Browning here creates a chilling masterpiece of psychological (and psychosexual) drama. As Michael Koller writes, The Unknown is a truly horrifying film that takes us into the darkest recesses of the human psyche. SJS
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1920s
OKTYABR (1927)
OCTOBER
U.S.S.R. (Sovkino) 95m Silent BW
Director: Grigori Aleksandrov, Sergei M. Eisenstein
Screenplay: Grigori Aleksandrov, Sergei M. Eisenstein
Photography: Vladimir Nilsen, Vladimir Popov, Eduard Tisse
Music: Alfredo Antonini, Edmund Meisel
Cast: Vladimir Popov, Vasili Nikandrov, Layaschenko, Chibisov, Boris Livanov, Mikholyev, N. Podvoisky, Smelsky, Eduard Tisse
In 1926, Sergei M. Eisenstein went to Germany to present his new film The Battleship Potemkin. He left a promising young filmmaker, but he came back an international cultural superstar. A series of major film productions was being planned to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Bolshevik victory. Eisenstein eagerly accepted the challenge of presenting on screen the revolutionary process in Russialiterally, how the country went from Aleksandr Kerenskys Provisional Government, installed after the Czars abdication, to the first victories of Lenin and his followers.
No expense was spared. Massive crowd scenes were organized, and city traffic was diverted so Eisenstein could shoot in the very sites where the depicted incident occurred. Contrary to popular belief, the film contains not one meter of documentary footage. Every shot was a re-creation. Working feverishly, Eisenstein finished just in time for the anniversary celebrations, but the reactions, official and otherwise, were less than enthusiastic. Many found the film confusing and difficult to follow. Others wondered why the role of Lenin was so greatly reduced (the actor playing him, Vasili Nikandrov, appears only a handful of times on screen.) Several critics who had supported Potemkin suggested that Eisenstein go back to the editing room and keep working.