Man of a Thousand Faces

Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)

The son of deaf-mute parents grows up to become a great silent film star.

And on the simple statement hangs the chronicle of a man who continues to haunt our nightmares and fascinate our daydreams eighty one years after his death.

The story of Lon Chaney contains enough material for a tv miniseries. Unfortunately, especially for Chaney fans, “Man of a Thousand Faces” is limited to a spare 125m, and it is doubtful that any studio, let alone a contemporary audience, has any interest in re-visiting the incidents in the actor’s life.

James Cagney portrays Chaney, whose casting was considered a major miscast when announced in late 1956. However, Cagney proved them wrong by delivering one of his finest screen performances. Neither the script nor Cagney shied away from delving into the darker aspects of the star’s life, which was not the case in many screen biographies of the period that whitewashed much of the truth.
Jolson and Cohan were alive during the shooting of their screen bios and could have scuttled the projects, costing studios big bucks. Chaney’s relatives and former wife Cleva Creighton signed off on the legal technicalities and apparently had no qualms about the darker content (assuming they had any say in the final draft, at all). According to Chaney biographer, Michael F. Blake, Cleva, after seeing the movie, claimed it was “fairly accurate.”

There is just enough information on Chaney’s childhood to give us a hint of the tormented boy whose parents were the subject of ridicule among his peers and who “never spoke in the streets” because he wanted them to think he was similarly afflicted. The entire period of his early career is missing and we don’t pick it up until he is married to Cleva Creighton, a singer and his partner in their vaudeville act.

Dorothy Malone is Cleva, a highly strung woman who discovers too late that Chaney’s parents are deaf-mutes and is horrified in her belief that their impending child will also be impaired. Much of their real life story is somewhat muddled here, and the facts may have been shifted about somewhat, but Chaney and his wife did become estranged at this point and Cleva did attempt to take her life by swallowing a poison backstage while Chaney was performing. Malone superbly sketches a woman on the edge of a nervous collapse and in search of love denied by her unforgiving husband, even if she bears some of the responsibility for the breakup.

Chaney’s soon-to-be second wife, Hazel (Jane Greer) steps in to fill the void left behind by Cleva. According to Michael F. Blake in his excellent Chaney biography, there is not much known about her life prior to marrying the actor. There are home movies of the couple rough housing and having a ball, and a striking photo of Hazel in a state of collapse as she is led from his funeral service. In the film, Greer is married to a man who has lost his legs, a sequence that becomes the inspiration for one of Chaney’s most difficult and impressive roles, the paraplegic psychopath of “The Penalty.”

Creighton Chaney, later Lon Chaney, Jr., is played by the slim, athletic Roger Smith (no one in “Man of a Thousand Faces” bears the slightest physical resemblance to any of the real life characters). At first led to believe that his real mother is dead, he is devastated when Hazel breaks down and confesses the truth, much to the anger and anguish of his father. Their estrangement dominates the second half of the movie where facts and incidents are eliminated or compressed to allow their inclusion in the running time. Creighton Chaney was already married at the time of his father’s death and the final scene between them is pure Hollywood hoakum.

The movie is shot in glorious monochrome, which is how we remember Lon Chaney. Technicolor would have robbed the film of its essential strength, the power to move us with shadows etched out of sunlight, especially during the brief recreations of Chaney’s most accomplished roles, Quasimodo and the Phantom.

The brilliant, memorable musical score includes two jaunty eccentric dance numbers performed by Cagney (the last time he danced on screen?) and an amazing range of motifs that encompass the full field of human emotions. It is one of the great movie scores of all time.

There isn’t much to be said about the recreations of Chaney’s classic make ups. His secrets and his skill in utilizing the craft died with him. Also, Cagney’s face was round, whereas Chaney’s face was long, and any serious attempt to duplicate perfectly any of the silent actor’s brilliant “1,000 faces” would have been doomed to failure.

If there is a single greatest criticism of “Man of a Thousand Faces,” it is in knowing that so much was left out of the movie, by necessity. Creighton Chaney’s relationship with his iconic father and his own subsequent film career is heartbreaking. Over the years, Creighton Chaney told innumerable stories about his famous father, many of them in conflict with each other, some wonderful, some tragic.

Year by year, the era of silent film, the era of the Chaney’s, grows more distant and dim. There will be no bio of Creighton Chaney to flesh out what could only be hinted about in the 1957 film.

To God There Is No Zero. I Still Exist.