Joan’s eyes… so reflective they almost show the director and
crew illuminated by the Klieg lights. So laser sharp, a flick of the lashes
glancing so pleadingly towards the camera or in soft-focus, delivering a
glistening tear as heartbreak turns her soul.
This was the film when Crawford truly hit her stride as she
paced Lon Chaney’s own exhausting rigour and fed of the insane energies
fueling his performance. There are those who like Joan and
others who like Norma Shearer but whilst the latter had warned her pal about
the Chaney experience, the younger actress clearly had a better balance with
the man of a thousand grimaces; a face like a talking book. This might say
something or nothing about Shearer vs Crawford, but the latter grabbed it as an
opportunity to focus her career with the same energy, commitment and ruthless
dedication she applied to her dancing and everything else.
Joan Crawford |
And, that’s all it takes to become the biggest star in Hollywood and to build a career that lasted for a lifetime.
The first time I saw this film I thought it striking but
quite unpleasant and that’s not only par for the course for writer/director Tod
Browning, but also for a long line of films that came after him from David
Lynch to Russ Meyer, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Roger Corman, Quentin Tarrentino
and many more; tales to unsettle. But not many can do this with the style of Lynch
or Browning who, a former circus artiste himself, knew the dark side of the
business and the attraction it held for the outcast and outlandish. He knew the
transgressive fascination the tented world held for the mainstream; clowns,
jugglers, strongmen and horses – we all like a freak-out.
Lon Chaney and Nick De Ruiz |
But The Unknown is
unsettling not just because of the setting but because of the intensity of
Chaney’s character, his lack of morality and his willingness to do anything, to
himself and others, in order to get what he wants. Chaney manages to convey all
of this with skill, he’s scaringly true. He is maybe even more frightening than
he is in the Phantom as his motivations are easier to read and believe: there
is no mask to hide the real horror of the man without care. And you really –
really - wouldn’t want him throwing knives at you with his feet, let alone on a
moving podium…
Chaney plays Alonzo the Armless, a circus performer who is
extraordinary skilled at using the only limbs he apparently has left: his legs
and feet.
He loves Nanon Zanzi (Joan Crawford) and she is part of his
act, stripping down to a skimpy costume as he throws those knives at her and
shoots the straps of her dress off… The male gaze is all over Joan and, indeed
the male gauze for the love scenes… Crawford’s legs should have been down for a
best-supporting role they’re featured so thoroughly and there’s not a dress
that’s not tailored to within a half-inch of her figure. Those eyes are given
ample chance to shine and her young face – always slightly not-Joan… shown in
close-ups crafted with all the care of Brown’s Garbo or Sternberg’s Marlene.
Her physicality is a match for Chaney’s own and that’s one
thing Shearer couldn’t match: Crawford has a dancer’s athleticism and she’s
fearless. Ferocious in fact. She had to be with a story like this… there were a
few twenty first century sniggers in a packed NFT 2, although they quickly died
away. The idea of a two-thumbed man, hiding his arms for profit is bizarre as
is the woman who is not just frightened of male intimacy but, specifically,
their arms and hands. The sheer commitment of the performers carries all before
it until you’re sitting in shock watching the lengths to which mad love can
drive man and beast…
Norman Kerry’s circus strongman Malabar the Mighty seems a
mite luke-warm next to his co-stars, he’s handsome, muscular and noble but here
reduced to the role of love interest – a benign corner of the triangle, a
sweet-hearted mirror to better reflect Chaney’s fire. Malabar longs to caress
Nanon but she has been the victim of unwanted male contact too many times: she
cannot bear the embrace of his manly mits and fulsome forearms.
Norman Kerry and his, um, arms... |
Alonzo being armless, Nanon feels less threatened and gives
her affection knowing that there’ll be none of the advances that unsettle her
so. Alonzo uses this to try force her and the muscle man apart and it seems to
be working… Then, out of the blue, we discover that Alonzo is far from harmless:
he is a fully-armed escaped killer whose malformed thumbs have meant that he
hides his hands in order to avoid detection by the police. The moment when his tightly
strapped corset is opened is all the more shocking for our imagining what discomfort
the actor had to endure during filming… every bit a shocking as the revelation
of the Phantom’s face.
Soon he has more to hide after killing Nanon’s father
Antonioni, the circus owner with his double thumb spotted by Nanon: he must
keep his arms to himself and yet how can he have his love without revealing himself.
The most frightening laugh you will ever see... |
By now the story has developed a cast-iron logic of its own
and we believe everything even Alonzo’s last desperate leap of faith makes
total sense… but we are caught up in his
fevered World and as if to illustrate the extremes, the young lovers are filmed
behind a gauze by Browning, as if to emphasise the fairy-tale quality of their
love. Desperation and devotion will collide in the shocking ending
which still makes me shuffle uncomfortably in my seat as innocence unravels as perceived
friend attempts the most dastardly revenge for the loss of his lover…
Costas Fotopoulis accompanied with assured lyricism and
relishing every startling twisted nerve. He played along to the dramatic excess
with restrain and period charm, gothic chords and yearning lines back-dropping
the intense, bizarre, emotion on screen.
Mordaunt Hall reviewed the film of release for the New York Times and was reservedly ecstatic: “The narrative is a sort of
mixture of Balzac and Guy de Maupassant with a faint suggestion of O. Henry
plus Mr. Browning's colourful side-show background… Mr. Chaney really
gives a marvellous idea of the Armless Wonder… he even scratches his head with
his toe when meditating.
Miss Crawford is not
only beautiful, but she gives a most competent performance...”
So… not just a pretty face. “Competent”, oh Mordaunt, she’d
have you for breakfast mate!
The Unknown was
screening as part of the BFI’s Joan Crawford season: Fierce – it runs until October and features many of her classic roles but maybe they all started
here; the Joan Crawford of tomorrow, next year and after youth.
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