The Unknown

Wednesday  3 April at 7.30pm

Tod Browning | USA | 1927 | 68 mins | PG

Lon Chaney delivers a wrenchingly physical performance as an armless knife-thrower whose infatuation with his beautiful assistant Joan Crawford drives him to unspeakable extremes.

“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.”– Criterion
“Known since its rediscovery in the 1960s only in a shortened print found in the Cinematheque Francaise, The Unknown has now been restored to essentially its full length by the George Eastman Museum, with the missing shots and sequences—approximately 10 minutes of material—restored from a Czech export print in the collection of the National Film Archive in Prague. While they don’t alter the narrative, the newfound scenes add nuance, background, and context, enriching what is already one of the most bizarre films to come out of Hollywood.”–MoMA