Editing Tod Browning (section)

=== ''The Unknown'' (1927): A silent era chef d'oeuvre ===
''[[The Unknown (1927 film)|The Unknown]]'' marks the creative apogee of the Tod Browning and Lon Chaney collaborations, and is widely considered their most outstanding work of the silent era.<ref>Brogan, 2019: "When they made The Unknown in 1927, star Lon Chaney and director Tod Browning were among the biggest names in Hollywood...The Unknown is now considered by many to be the best of the Chaney/Browning collaborations...the sixth of ten collaborations between Chaney and director Tod Browning."<br />Conterio, 2018: "Generally considered to be the pair's best film together, and Browning's masterpiece..."<br />Eaker, 2016: "The Unknown (1927) is one of the final masterpieces of the silent film era...the one film in which the artists' obsessions perfectly crystallized."<br />Towlson, 2012: "... ''The Unknown'' (1927) (which many regard as Browning's best film)..."</ref> More so than any of Browning's silent pictures, he fully realizes one of his central themes in ''The Unknown'': the linkage of physical deformity with sexual frustration.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 32: "The Unknown defines a sexual basis for the frustration theme of the entire Browning-Chaney cycle and relates it directly to the star's physical deformity."</ref>

{{quote box|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk | fontsize=100%|salign=center | quote= [The story] writes itself after I have conceived the characters. ''The Unknown'' came to me after I had the idea of a man [Alonzo] without arms. I then asked myself what are the most amazing situations and actions that a man thus reduced could be involved... — Tod Browning in ''[[Motion Picture Classic]]'' interview, 1928<ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 33: "Browning indicates that his story ideas did not begin with plot..." And see here for the entire quote, with references to ''The Road to Mandalay'' (1926).</ref><ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 23: See here for another excerpt from 1928 ''Motion Picture Classic'' interview.</ref><br />
<br />I contrived to make myself look like an armless man, not simply to shock and horrify you but merely to bring to the screen a dramatic story of an armless man. — Actor Lon Chaney, on his creation of the character Alonzo in ''The Unknown''.<ref>Brogan, year: "As The Unknown proves, Chaney didn't need to rely on heavy make-up to transform himself for a role." And see here for quote.</ref>}}

Circus performer "Alonzo the armless", a Gypsy knife-thrower, appears as a double amputee, casting his knives with his feet. His deformity is an illusion (except for a [[Bifid penis|bifid]] thumb), achieved by donning a corset to bind and conceal his healthy arms. The able-bodied Alonzo, sought by the police, engages in this deception to evade detection and arrest.<ref>Soloman, 2006 p. 51: Alonzo "masquerades as an armless freak" one of Browning's portrayal of "elaborate deceptions that take place on the level of mise-en-scene."<br />Stafford, 2003 TCM: "the character of Alonzo in The Unknown is one of his most disturbing creations and the most twisted film in his ten-year association with director Tod Browning."</ref> Alonzo harbors a secret love for Nanon ([[Joan Crawford]]), his assistant in the act. Nanon's father is the abusive (perhaps sexually so) ringmaster Zanzi ([[Nick De Ruiz]]), and Nanon has developed a pathological aversion to any man's embrace. Her emotional dysfunction precludes any sexual intimacy with the highly virile strong-man, Malabar, or Alonzo, his own sexual prowess symbolized by his knife-throwing expertise and his double thumb.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 32–33: Chaney's character is "infatuated with Crawford who has a neurotic aversion to being handled by men, and naturally, an armless man is the only lover she can abide." And: Alonzo's "heightened sexual prowess [represented by] his supernumerary thumb" and his high-functioning performance without arms.</ref><ref>Eaker, 2016: "Nanon's sadistic father, Antonio Zanzi (Nick de Ruiz, hinted at being the abusive source for Nanon's hatred of a man's touch)."</ref> When Alonzo murders Zanzi during an argument, the homicide is witnessed by Nanon, who detects only the bifid thumb of her father's assailant.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "But, Alonzo must have, marry, and own Nanon, [but] she would certainly hate the hands of the double-thumbed murderer."</ref><ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 33: "...if [Alonzo] proceeds to marry Nanon, his wife will discover his secret" as the killer of her father.</ref>

[[File:The Unknown (1927 film), M-G-M studios, Screenshot. L to R, Actors Lon Chaney, John George.jpg<!-- Do NOT change the spelling of the image file! -->|thumb|''The Unknown'' (1927) Lon Chaney as Alonzo the Armless, John George as Cojo]]
Browning's theme of sexual frustration and physical mutilation ultimately manifests itself in Alonzo's act of symbolic castration; he willingly has his arms amputated by an unlicensed surgeon so as to make himself unthreatening to Nanon (and to eliminate the incriminating bifid thumb), so as to win her affection. The "nightmarish irony" of Alonzo's sacrifice is the most outrageous of Browning's plot conceits and consistent with his obsessive examination of "sexual frustration and emasculation".<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 33: "The amputations take on the significance of castration...[Nanon] aroused only by 'sexless' men."<br />Brenez, 2006 p. 100: "...''The Unknown'', the most drastic film in regard" to "the defects and excess" of dismemberment.<br />Sobchack, 2006 p. 29: The Unknown shares a "common element of [Browning's] bizarre melodramas...a hint of perverse sexuality....Estrellita (Nanon) [[Joan Crawford]] is horrified at being touched by men's hands Alonzo's [Chaney] surgery for love of her is to say the least, excessive."<br />Conterio, 2018: "The Unknown is a sublime fusion of [[Sadomasochism|sadomasochist]] imagery, male self-loathing, [[misandry]], [[castration]] symbolism and nightmarish irony."</ref><ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 11: "Alonzo [Chaney], in The Unknown is among the most rabid and instinctive of Browning's protagonists..." And pp. 32–33: "The Unknown defines a sexual basis for the frustration theme of the entire Browning-Chaney cycle and relates it to the star's inevitable physical deformity.'"<br />Brenez, 2006 p. 100: "...The Unknown, the most drastic film in regard" to "the defects and excess" of dismemberment.<br />Towlson, 2017 Part 2: ".. one of the key themes in Browning's work...is the emasculation/castration theme, in particular, one Browning explored obsessively in his films (especially those made with Lon Chaney)."</ref> When Alonzo recovers from his surgery, he returns to the circus to find that Nanon has overcome her sexual aversions and married the strongman Malabar ([[Norman Kerry]]).<ref>Conterio, 2018: "Fixated on human disfigurement and underworld figures, the films are marked by a star k, obsessive aesthetic and themes of compulsion."</ref> The primal ferocity of Alonzo's reaction to Nanon's betrayal in marrying Malabar is instinctual. Film historian Stuart Rosenthal writes:

{{blockquote|The reversion to an animalistic state in Browning's cinema functions as a way of acquiring raw power to be used as a means of sexual assertion. The incident that prompts the regression [to an animal state] and a search for vengeance is, in almost every case, sexual in nature.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 30–31</ref>}}

Alonzo's efforts at retribution lead to his own horrific death in a "[[Grand Guignol]] finale".<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 11–12: "Alonzo...chooses animals — horses – as his means for disarticulating his nemesis, Malbar, the Strongman. Alonzo's death beneath the horse's hooves, therefore, occurs in his own element." And: "...a lust for retribution...for those who have made them outcasts."</ref><ref>Eaker, 2016: The Unknown "ends with a startling, ferociously driven, symbolic finale."<br />Safford, 2003 TCM: "the Grand Guignol finale."</ref><ref>Diekmann and Knörer, 2006 p. 73: "As far as plots are concerned, the proximity of Browning's cinema to the theatre of the [[Grand Guignol]] is evident..."</ref>

''The Unknown'' is widely regarded as the most outstanding of the Browning-Chaney collaborations and a masterpiece of the late silent film era.<ref>Brogan, 2008: "When they made ''The Unknown'' in 1927, star Lon Chaney and director Tod Browning were among the biggest names in Hollywood...The Unknown is now considered by many to be the best of the Chaney/Browning collaborations...the sixth of ten collaborations between Chaney and director Tod Browning."<br />Conterio, 2018: "Generally considered to be the pair's best film together, and Browning's masterpiece..."<br />Eaker, 2016: "''The Unknown'' (1927) is one of the final masterpieces of the silent film era...the one film in which the artists' obsessions perfectly crystallized."<br />Stafford, 2003 TCM: "the character of Alonzo in ''The Unknown'' is one of his most disturbing creations and the most twisted film in his ten-year association with director Tod Browning."</ref> Film critic Scott Brogan regards ''The Unknown'' worthy of "cult status."<ref>Brogan, 2019: "The Unknown is quite possibly the most unusual, and the most deserving of 'cult film' status" among the Browning-Chaney film collaborations.<br />Eaker, 2016: "The Unknown is...an entirely idiosyncratic work of art, which has never been remotely mimicked, nor could it be."</ref>