Stars: Four out of five stars

"The Unknown" is a very intriguing, mesmerizing film set in a gypsy circus with great dreamlike music and bizarre images.  It's from the director of "Freaks," Todd Browning, a former sideshow performer who had a penchant for the macabre, twisted romance and carney life.  Set up like a folk tale, it opens with a glittering shot of a circus tent reminiscent of Coney Island's Dreamland and involves an armless knife thrower, Alonzo's (Lon Chaney, Sr.) ill-fated obsession for the circus owner's daughter, Nanon (a very young Joan Crawford), a story from Old Madrid, as the title cards explain, “they say is true.”  Apparently, Browning and Chaney formed a successful collaboration while both under contract at MGM and this was considered one of their best efforts.

Chaney, known as The Man of a Thousand Faces because of his chameleon-like ability to transform himself into odd and far-ranging characters, was adept at making viewers both repelled and empathetic through his arrestingly expressive face, a skilled makeup artist whose success in that vein, in his own words, "relied more on the placements of highlights and shadows, some not in the most obvious areas of the face."  Raised by deaf parents, he learned early on to communicate and express without words.  In "The Unknown," he performs with arms tightly strait-jacketed in order to appear armless just as he had simulated a double-amputee in "The Penalty" by devising a leather harness with stumps that allowed him to strap his legs behind him and walk on his knees.  His Alonzo has sinister motivations, however, merely pretending to be armless to hide a deformity in his hand that would identify him as a killer to the police.  Meanwhile the comely Nanon fears the touch of men's hands, trusting Alonzo as a non-threatening friend and not suspecting the depths he feels or will go to in order to possess her. 

When Malabar the Mighty (Norman Kerry), the strong man, expresses romantic interest in the alluring and sweet-faced Nanon, Alonzo is ultimately compelled to commit a rash act:  he has his own arms surgically removed. As a reviewer amusingly put it – a farewell to arms!  But fate pulls another fast one on Alonzo, leading to a sequence by Chaney that Burt Lancaster called "one of the most compelling and emotionally exhausting scenes I have ever seen an actor do."

Chaney is incredible, his concentration apparently impressing the young Crawford greatly, as she considered him one of her most influential teachers.  Not only is this film beautiful to look at with many of Crawford’s scenes being filmed behind a scrim for softening effect (the silent film era a ripe time for experimentation and creativity), but the dialogue is poetically beautiful.  “Then if you do care for me,” Malabar tells Nanon, “why won’t you ever let me hold you in my arms?” or “Eyes that adore you…hands that long to caress you…and strength to protect you.”  Crawford, clearly not much out of her teens, is a natural beauty with incredibly soulful, tender eyes and a sleek, voluptuous body as taut as a cheetah, able to show both innocence and fire.  She moves with balletic grace and exhibits much presence and charisma, her face as striking and expressive as her role model Chaney.  The documentary “Joan Crawford:  The Ultimate Star” noted that she learned to channel resources from an abused childhood into her more difficult scenes.  It's not surprising she became a major star.  A great silent film; I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Italian giallos were influenced by this one. – D. Nowak