“LON CHANEY LIVES”

By Raymond Benson

One might not expect James Cagney to become the Phantom of the Opera or the Hunchback of Notre Dame, but he did, and it’s… convincing enough. Cagney, of course, is playing the great Lon Chaney, i.e., Lon Chaney Sr., the silent film star who created the iconic make-up imagery for those two characters that is still emblazoned in our collective consciousness.

Man of a Thousand Faces, released in 1957, is a good biopic about Chaney, and it benefits greatly from Cagney’s presence. The picture begins with Chaney’s early work in vaudeville, where he meets his wife Cleva (Dorothy Malone). That relationship will prove to be a turbulent and tragic one. Much of the biopic focuses on the melodrama that existed in the couple’s relationship, and only later does Chaney, as an afterthought, fall into the motion picture business. Then we see his phenomenal rise to fame and success with a series of ingenious make-up transformations that caused Americans to tell the old joke: “Look a bug!” “Careful, don’t step on it! It might be Lon Chaney!”

Suffice it to say that Cagney’s star power elevates the picture. It’s a role he took on late in his career, and he throws a great deal of energy and intelligence into it. The conversions into the various monsters and unusual beings that Chaney played were done mostly with masks instead of the original meticulously applied make-up (which was often painful to wear), but enough of the actor shines through to present a dynamic performance.

Dorothy Malone as the long-suffering wife, and mother of Lon Chaney Jr. (who started out as Creighton Chaney), is also winning, and Jane Greer as second wife Hazel embodies a very different persona from what we know of her in the excellent film noir, Out of the Past. Cagney’s sister Jeanne plays Lon’s sister, Carrie, and an assortment of familiar Hollywood faces fill out other roles—Jim Backus, Jack Albertson, and even Robert Evans as Irving Thalberg (!).

Arrow Academy has been doing excellent high definition releases and have easily established themselves as a serious competitor to the likes of The Criterion Collection and Kino Lorber. The feature is a new 1080p restoration from the original negative with an uncompressed Mono 1.0 PCM audio soundtrack. There are optional English subtitles and an audio commentary by the always reliable Tim Lucas. Supplements include a featurette, “The Man Behind a Thousand Faces,” with critic Kim Newman; an image gallery; and the original trailer. The package has one of Arrow’s signature reversible sleeves with new artwork by Graham Humphreys backed with the original theatrical poster image. The slick illustrated booklet contains an essay by Vic Pratt.

All in all, Arrow has produced a classy presentation, a worthy tribute to both James Cagney and the inimitable Lon Chaney.

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