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Why are armless men so often smokers? Many people start because it gives them something to do with their hands. I suppose feet get bored too sometimes, fair’s fair. Usually, I just kick at low walls or tap my toes. I have full use of all four limbs, but maybe if I became a foot smoker they would let me smoke on airplanes and restaurants. They might even applaud at my brutish behavior, cool people would. Still, why should just my foot get all the fun? I’m more likely the obsessive type who smokes with all four limbs. I could turn it into an act and be a veritable Shiva the Destroyer (of lungs). 

Babies are limber; I bet they’d make excellent foot smokers. If I ran an illegal sideshow I would have a baby foot smoker. The red velvet curtain would be pulled and there’s a baby carriage sitting on it, and puffs of smoke coming out. People would say, “Aww, how adorable! His puffs are so tiny.” It’s better than giving them a pacifier and have their teeth become crooked. 

On the other hand, movies could be remade armless. Imagine Clint Eastwood westerns where he smokes a cigar with one foot and shoots black-hated bandits with the other. They would have to rename “A Fistful of Dollars” though, maybe something more appropriate like “Smoking Guns”. Dave Letterman might have better ratings if he smoked cigars without arms. I haven’t watched him in years though. I bet he quit, the coward. 

Anyway, “The Unknown”. There is only one thing unknown in this film and that’s why they gave it that title. This 1927 screen gem comes at us from Lon Cheney (Man of 1,000 faces) and Tod Browning, who also gave us “The Phantom of the Opera” and it is a cinematic masterpiece. I heard that the cinematographers shot the film using only their feet, the writer wrote the script with his feet, and that clipboard thingie before saying “Action!” wasn’t even invented yet. 

The plot goes as such, the armless Lon Cheney (no relation to the Vice President, who only has one face, if you can call it that) is a circus performer. In the opening scene, he uses his feet to shoot the clothes off the film’s heroine Nannon and then threw knives at her. It was a stunning sequence, rife with suspense, until her clothes were off and then it was rife with bare flesh. Well Nannon has a problem. She’s been pawed by so many men that she’s terrified of man hands. This leads to an intimate friendship between her and the armless Lon Cheney. Lon Cheney is in love with her, but she just wants to string him along, oops, I mean, be friends.  

A complication arises when the circus strong man also falls for Nannon, but there’s one catch. He has hands, strong ones, and he’s also real grabby. For her, it’s a real turn off, so she shuns him for a while. Meanwhile, armless Lon and his midget accomplice Cuju have a little chat about what he’s going to do. Cuju warns him that if she gets too comfortable with him she might discover he has hands (which is true) and that he’s also the 3-thumbed man who killed her father (also true). So Lon Cheney lights a cigarette with his feet and decides to chop off his arms for real. 

By the way, I didn’t mean to seem insensitive with the midget accomplice remark, but it’s the way Hollywood was back in those days. Dr. Evil had Mini Me. Dorothy had her munchkin accomplices. David Letterman has a midget accomplice. The list goes on, but I thought I should mention it. 

The heroine and the strong man come to understanding about her comfort with hands. Where formerly she was uncomfortable, suddenly she was in love with his hands. We, the audience, are left to imagine how the change took place. My guess is that, in the game of love, the strong man was covering 3rd base. In any case, she likes his hands, he likes, I don’t know…breasts. They decide to marry. Well, Cheney comes back truly armless, and is unhappy that the woman he chopped his arms off for is marrying another. So while the strong man voluntarily attaches himself to horses on treadmills, Lon Cheney stops the treadmills and is trampled to death. You really have to see it to get the full effect. 

Rating at a Glance: 749 

 

O say, can you see, My funny valentine

What so proudly we hail’d Sweet comic valentine

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, make me smile with my heart

O’er the ramparts we watch’d, your looks are laughable
Unphotographable

And the rockets’ red glare, you’re my favourite work of art
Gave proof thro’ the night that your mouth’s a little weak
When you open it to speak

O say, does that little valentine stay

O’er the land of the free and the home of valentine’s day

 

Scrimp on Life!

Living life one day after the next!

Belay the exuberance!