Quote of the Day (Chaney)

“Between pictures, there is no Lon Chaney.”—Silent screen star Lon Chaney (1883-1930)

(One of the most famous features in Chaney’s filmography was The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which premiered in New York on this date in 1923. By all means, rent The Lon Chaney Collection of his best-known work—and pay particular attention to the fine documentary Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces, narrated by Kenneth Branagh. You will come away with greater appreciation for someone who was more than simply the star of the big screen’s first horror films, but a character actor without peer.

The dedication of “The Man of a Thousand Faces’” to his craft was seldom more evident than in Hunchback, which at the time was his longest shoot to date. The sheer exhaustiveness of applying all that makeup—the knotted wig, nose putty on the cheeks, false teeth, fake eye, plaster hump weighing 10-15 pounds, and braces so confining they reportedly left Chaney in pain for much of the rest of his life—leaves you gasping in astonishment. But what makes the performance is the understanding—one that Chaney gained by interviewing a number of people with physical deformities. It resulted in a performance that stinted on sensationalism in favor of something far better: empathy.)