The leading actor is famously known as "The Man of a Thousand Faces", this silent film is one of the few occasions where he is not wearing any of his famous self-made makeup, and this film appeared in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, directed by Tod Browning (Dracula, Freaks). Basically Alonzo the Armless (Lon Chaney) is a circus freak, his great talent is using his feet to throw knives and fire a rifle at his assistant Nanon (young Joan Crawford), daughter of the circus owner. However Alonzo is a fraud and fugitive, he has arms and keeps them tightly bound to his torso with a corset, only circus midget Cojo (John George) knows his secret, but Alonzo does have a double thumb, this would identify him as a burglar. Alonzo is secretly in love with Nanon, circus strongman Malabar (Norman Kerry) is devoted to her also, but she has a phobia of being touched, she is repulsed by Malabar's sexual advances and desire to touch and hold her. Alonzo fuels Nanon's fear, hoping she will fall in love with him, being "armless", but she feels uncomfortable around him, she embraces and kisses Alonzo, but Cojo warns him if she holds him, she might feel his arms. The circus's owner Antonio Zanzi (Nick De Ruiz), who despises Alonzo, discovers his secret, Alonzo kills him with his bare hands, but Nanon witnesses this through the window, she did not see his face, she only knows that her father's killer has a double thumb on his left hand, Alonzo believed as being armless is not suspected. When the circus leaves town, Nanon is convinced by Alonzo to stay behind with him, he takes extreme measures to have her, he blackmails a surgeon into amputating his arms, but while he is away Malabar finally helps her to overcome her phobia, she agrees to marry him. With Alonzo truly armless he returns to Nanon, but he is shocked and horrified when she excitedly tells him her news, Malabar and Nanon have also been practising a new act, using horses on treadmills to make it look like strongman Malabar can withstand being pulled. During the first performance of this act, Alonzo stops one treadmill, in attempt to cause a horse to drag him, to kill his rival. Alonzo threatens Nanon with a knife when she tries to intervene, she rushes to calm down one of the horses, Alonzo tries to save her from injury, but pushing her out of the way he ends up being knocked down by the horse and stomped to death. Also starring Frank Lanning as Costra and John St. Polis as the Surgeon. Chaney gives a great performance as the vicious impostor who will do whatever it takes to get what he wants, however extreme or evil, and even with no Crawford proves a great presence. This film really appalled audiences in the old days, with its brutality and perversity, and to this day it is still a nightmarish macabre melodrama, with its themes of murder, amputation and obsession, and its constant sadomasochistic and devious atmosphere, a darkly disturbing but most watchable silent horror. Very good!

Though Browning is known best for directing Dracula (1931) and Chaney is most known as The Phantom of the Opera (1925), this little known thriller is their masterpiece.The Unknown (1927) concerns a seemingly armless knife thrower named Alonzo (Lon Chaney) who's really a murderer on the run. He pretends to be armless so his deformed thumb won't give him away. Alonzo becomes obsessed with the ringmaster's beautiful daughter Nanon (Joan Crawford) and seeks to possess her not only sexually, but emotionally as well. Luckily for Alonzo, she is frightened of men's hands (it's implied that she has suffered abuse in the past), which makes her comfortable around him. Alonzo wants to marry Nanon and believes she finds out about his true condition on their wedding night, she will forgive his deception. That all gets thrown out the window when he murders her father and Nanon sees that the killer has a double thumb. Plus, she's falling for the sideshow's handsome strongman(Norman Kerry). From there on, Alonzo unravels more and more, leading to the film's suspense-filled conclusion.A story as bizarre as this one could only be made plausible in the otherworldly universe of silent film. Having worked in a sideshow during his younger years, Browning often returned to such settings in his films (The Show (1927), The Unholy Three (1925), Freaks (1932)). As usual, he renders a world that is sinister and off-kilter. Lon Chaney also gives his best performance as Alonzo. It's mind-blowing how he takes such a creepy and violent character and manages to make him sympathetic. Though he's such a terrible person, Chaney somehow has you rooting for him to win the girl over. The scene toward the end where he has a mental breakdown has to be one of the most chilling things I've ever witnessed.If The Unknown has a flaw, then it would be the ending. It's a tad rushed and the resolution could have been handled better. I'd like to know more about Nanon's reaction to Alonzo's actions, for instance. Oh well. That's more of a nitpick than a real issue that topples the whole picture. The Unknown is essential for those who've only seen the static 1931 Dracula and think Browning was a hack, and those who believe Chaney relied solely on make-up to dazzle audiences.

This is a wonderful vehicle for two great stars -- Lon Chaney at his zenith and Joan Crawford in her earliest days. Joan's character has some very unusual hangups about men which Lon Chaney's supposedly armless "Alonzo" is well equipped to satisfy... or so it seems. But there's more to Alonzo than meets the eye (he actually has arms!) and Joan's extreme sexual reticence (only on screen, btw...) melts when she takes a closer look at the strongman. Thus Joan goes from being a prude dripping with sensuality to being highly conventional, but Chaney's character just gets more and more freakish in his behavior. Sullenly brooding one moment, laughing maniacally the next, Alonzo is a sociopath whose antics sometimes veer into cartoonishness but never fail to enthrall. The final scene, where Chaney dies protecting Joan who nearly dies protecting Chaney's strong-man rival from having his arms torn off (how perfect!) is absolutely priceless."The Unknown" features a grippingly offbeat and suspenseful tale, beautifully acted and skillfully shot and edited. Unless you cannot tolerate silent films you must see this one -- cannot recommend too highly.

I didn't know what to expect with this movie because I had never seen a silent movie before, but yo my surprise I actually liked this film. The plot is interesting if not a bit predictable. I thought it was very weird that the main girl had a fear of hands, but I guess there are weirder things to be afraid of. I was disappointed in the end that there were no twists. I would have liked to have seen the girl find out that he cut his arms off for her, but I guess it was easier to end the film with him dying. I thought the acting in this film was very well done. I think part of the reason I enjoyed this film was because the actors were so expressive that it made it easy to understand what they were thinking or feeling even though they were not talking. I would have liked to seen a few more dialouge cards, but even without them I was able to follow the story. This was definitely a good movie to see for a first-timer viewing a silent film :)