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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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The Unknown (1927)

Rating: 4 Stars (out of 4)

Farewell to Arms

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The Lon Chaney Collection on DVD

The master actor Lon Chaney finally gets a proper DVD tribute with "The Lon Chaney Collection" (1921-28, Warner Home Video, $39.98). It's a spectacular two-disc collection boasting three Chaney features, plus a 2000 documentary about his life directed by Kevin Brownlow and narrated by Kenneth Branagh. The set includes The Ace of Hearts (1921), Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1929) and most notably Tod Browning's astonishing 1927 masterpiece, The Unknown. In the latter film, Chaney plays an armless knife-thrower in a circus. He falls in love with a young Joan Crawford, but she, ironically, can't stand men's hands! To say any more would ruin the film's ungodly storyline and Browning's unflinching rhythms. It includes a punchy, lively score by the Alloy Orchestra. This excellent DVD set also includes commentary tracks by Chaney biographer Michael F. Blake and Rick Schmidlin's 47-minute photo restoration of Chaney and Browning's lost 1927 film London After Midnight.

Starring: Lon Chaney, Norman Kerry, Joan Crawford, Nick De Ruiz, John George, Frank Lanning
Written by: Tod Browning, Waldemar Young, Joseph Farnham, based, without credit on a novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Directed by: Tod Browning
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 49 minutes
Date: October 17, 2003