Alonzo (Lon Chaney) is a knife-thrower in a traveling circus. The gimmick? He has no arms and throws the knives with his feet. He's in love with the circus owner's daughter Nanon (Joan Crawford) and is always there to lend a sympathetic ear or a shoulder to cry on. But there is something sinister about Alonzo, and his seemingly pleasant face hides a criminal past and a darkness in his character.
The Unknown was the first silent movie I ever saw (thank you TCM Silent Sunday Nights!) so I'm probably a little biased when I say that this is the perfect first silent movie for anyone interested in the genre. It's just about an hour long, the plot is interesting, and it's a great introduction to Lon Chaney, the "Man of a Thousand Faces". I'm a big fan of his and this film sparked a minor obsession with his work when I was a teen...from The Phantom of the Opera to The Unholy Three to Laugh, Clown, Laugh, I loved it all. I even sat through an attempted reconstruction of his famous lost film London After Midnight, made entirely from production stills. He's a very intriguing actor and works great with the young and not-yet-scary Joan Crawford.
If you're looking for something different to mix up your almost-October movie list, I recommend this one. It's bizarre and quirky in a way that silent movies almost always are, but a great watch nonetheless.
"Tod Browning and forgotten genius Lon Chaney's perfectly executed allegory about the self-castration impulse in all of us, The Unknown is immensely entertaining, unpredictable and thoroughly disinhibited - perhaps the most fearless and shameless melodrama of all time."- Guy Maddin
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