Coming Soon on Criterion Blu-ray - Marshall Deutelbaum alerts to the release of THE UNKNOWN (Todd Browning, USA, 1927)

One of the October Criterion releases will be Todd Browning’s The Unknown. 

It’s a great movie! It was thought for many years to be a lost film. All that time a print of it was at the Cinematheque Française in cans labelled “inconnu” (“unknown”). People thought it was an unidentified movie. 

Only when someone opened a can to look at the film was it discovered that it was actually the Lon Chaney film. Criterion have probably used the Eastman House print for the transfer. 

I haven’t seen the movie in more than 40 years and will be thrilled to see it again. Lon Chaney plays Alonzo the armless circus knife thrower who throws knives with his feet. Joan Crawford plays a woman who loves him because he can’t touch her. She hates to be touched. 

It’s wonderful.

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Editor's Note: The Unknown will be released in a three film package (cover below) along with two other Browning titles Freaks  (1932) and The Mystic (1925).

Good luck trying to to import Criterion to Australia but there are ways.