The Unknown
Featuring Lon Chaney as circus sideshow act Alonzo the Armless, who performs all of life’s functions with his feet, including throwing knives at his beautiful assistant Nanon (Joan Crawford in a pre-breakout role).
Nanon is disgusted at the touch of a man, so she befriends Alonzo, who poses no such threat. Alonzo pines for Nanon, but must compete with circus strong man Malabar (Norman Kerry), who Alonzo sabotages when he can. As Alonzo grows closer to Nanon he goes to extreme lengths to hide a terrible secret.
This special screening of The Unknown includes the 2023 restoration of Tod Browning’s masterpiece to its full length by the George Eastman Museum, with approximately 10 minutes of previously lost shots and sequences taken from a Czech export print in the collection of the National Film Archive in Prague. It will be brought to life thanks to a special score prepared and performed by Harder Than Concrete, Ben Addison’s Leeds-based musique concrète and electronic music project featuring vintage test equipment, electromechanical instruments, and DIY fairground organs.
Event information
Running Time: 1hr 8mins
Certificate: PG
Content Guidance: None listed
Part of reRUN
Part of Too Much: Melodrama on Film
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