The Unknown
The Unknown
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1h 8m
Directed by Tod Browning • 1927 • United States
Starring Lon Chaney, Norman Kerry, Joan Crawford
The most celebrated and exquisitely perverse of the many collaborations between Tod Browning and his legendary leading man Lon Chaney, THE UNKNOWN features a wrenchingly physical performance from “the Man of a Thousand Faces” as the armless Spanish knife thrower Alonzo (he flings daggers with his feet) whose dastardly infatuation with his beautiful assistant (Joan Crawford)—a woman, it just so happens, who cannot bear to be touched by the hands of any man—drives him to unspeakable extremes. Sadomasochistic obsession, deception, murder, disfigurement, and a spectacular Grand Guignol climax—Browning wrings every last frisson from the lurid premise.
Up Next in The Unknown
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THE UNKNOWN Commentary
This commentary track, recorded in 2023, features author and Tod Browning biographer David J. Skal.
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Megan Abbott on THE UNKNOWN