Stepping into THE UNKNOWN (1927)

Posted by Stephen Jannise

Local Austin band The Invincible Czars made seeing Tod Browning’s The Unknown again a real pleasure. The band made fine use of the many instruments at its disposal, among them violin, flute, and all the usual rock band accoutrements, and some haunting vocals moments added a few lovely emotional notes to the film. The Czars are a talented group of players, and you can catch this performance/screening again during SXSW on Thursday March 18 at 12 noon at the Alamo Ritz. Now, onto the film itself…

This was my second viewing of this movie, and though some of the more striking surprises were obviously not as effective as they were the first time, the film nevertheless retains its steamy air of lovelorn madness. Though the film is ostensibly about Alonzo, an armless knife thrower played by Lon Chaney who is trying to win over a fellow circus performer played by Joan Crawford, we learn very early on that Alonzo does indeed have arms. He is, in truth, a criminal on the lam who must hide his arms because he has two thumbs on one of his hands, a dead giveaway.

What a pair.

I remember being quite astonished by this reveal the first time. As Alonzo’s assistant begins to help him remove his shirt, I remember thinking, “Hey, if they take that shirt off, how will they hide the fact that Chaney, the actor, really does have arms?” Then, we see his arms! Alonzo has arms, too! It’s hard to explain the reaction in my mind when this happened. After several minutes of trying to reconcile my extratextual awareness of the existence of Chaney’s arms with Alonzo’s armlessness, all of these notions are suddenly eradicated by the appearance of the arms right there onscreen. Unexpectedly, you realize that both the actor and the character have been concealing their arms the whole time. The fact that the actor is Lon Chaney, Man of a Thousand Faces and master of disguise, only makes the moment that much more fulfilling.

The film has many more wonderful moments. There’s the young, beautiful Crawford, who is not yet picky about how she hangs her clothing, having her clothes shot off piece by piece by Alonzo and his foot gun. And there is the marvelously tragic conclusion, in which Alonzo actually has his arms surgically removed because he is in love with Crawford, who has a fear of men’s hands. Unfortunately, she gets over this fear in order to fall in love with someone else, and Alonzo, in his now genuinely armless sorrow, is forced to take dramatic action. For never was there a story of more woe, than this of Joan and her armless Alonzo.