The Lon Chaney Collection

Lon Chaney was the quintessential character actor, the “man of a thousand faces,” his most famous being the Phantom of the Opera. Here are three others that indelibly demonstrate his uncanny, chameleonesque range. In the 1921 drama The Ace of Hearts, he plays a member of a secret society who draws the titular card, sealing his fate as the assassin of a local tycoon who represents “the evil.” In the heartbreaking Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928), he portrays a circus clown in love with Simonetta (Loretta Young), an abandoned child who he adopts and raises. Two thumbs up--literally--for Freaks director Tod Browning's extremely twisted The Unknown (1927), in which Chaney stars as circus performer Alonzo the Armless, whose love for the circus owner's daughter (Joan Crawford) is thwarted by her pathological fear of being “pawed.” Turns out that Alonzo actually has arms, not to mention a hand with two thumbs, which he uses to kill the circus owner, as he goes to obsessive lengths to win the woman's heart. This two-disc set also contains Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces, a compelling documentary narrated by Kenneth Branagh, as well as a reconstruction of the long-lost London After Midnight (1927). The print quality understandably varies, but these essential silent films preserve Chaney's haunting legacy. Highly recommended. (D. Liebenson)