THE UNKNOWN w/ Pipe Organ Soundtrack by Jeff Rapsis!
Fri, Sep 13
|Epsilon Spires
A Fundraiser for NEW ENGLAND CENTER for CIRCUS ARTS! Celebrate Friday the 13th with Tod Browning’s THE UNKNOWN (1927) featuring Lon Chaney’s towering performance as an armless knife thrower whose obsession with his beautiful circus assistant (Joan Crawford) drives him to unspeakable extremes.
Time & Location
Sep 13, 2024, 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Epsilon Spires, 190 Main St, Brattleboro, VT 05301, USA
About the event
The Unknown, (1927, 68 mins). The most celebrated and exquisitely perverse and fascinating of the many collaborations between Tod Browning and the legendary "Man of a Thousand Faces” Lon Chaney. THE UNKNOWN shocks and awes through Chaney’s towering performance as carnival knife thrower “Alonzo the Armless” who throws knives with his feet in a daring act featuring the alluring Nanon Zanzi, played by Joan Crawford in her first major role. Offering romance, macabre obsession, and surrealist horror while steering clear of exploitative tropes, the film's strange power remains potent nearly 100 years later. It’s also an early watershed moment for disability representation in horror cinema. Director Tod Browning spent many years working in the circus before bringing his experiences to Hollywood, and all of his films from the 1920s and 30s reveal authentic engagement with his characters, many of whom were real performers under a canvas tent before they made…