I first saw this, as I recall, back in 2002, at which time I was quite panicked by the climax of this film and seriously thought it would in fact end with Norman Kerry’s arms being ripped off, and I was making some very odd squealing noises while watching it. If a then-75 year old silent film could have that effect on me, it had to be something remarkable. 22 years later, as The Unknown approaches its centenary, it perhaps didn’t quite have that effect on me tonight, but it wasn’t that far off… plus in those intervening a second print of the film turned up, thus returning it to its original length and proportions. If Freaks was an odd choice for MGM to make and release in 1932, this was even odder in a way for them to have made five years earlier; it really is one of the most fucked-up romances in 20th century cinema, the criminal trying to keep his… distinctive hand concealed by posing as an armless circus knife thrower and the young woman terrified of the touch of men’s hands, leading to an… extreme makeover, shall we say. This must’ve seemed amazingly grotesque in 1927, cos it sure as hell does in 2024, and I’ve always seen it as the sort of thing which demonstrates how good an actor Lon Chaney was quite apart from his obviously formidable make-up skills. The Unknown is melodrama of somewhat preposterous luridness, but somehow Chaney sells this bizarre proposition, even though Alonzo the Armless is a character that even Werner Herzog might have found excessive. I did kind of miss the Alloy Orchestra’s score from the older release, but that was written for the 49-minute version so wouldn’t have worked the same for this restoration; whatever, though, it’s good to have it back to what appears to be almost its original length. Pleased to see this again too.
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