The man with the 1000 faces

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Movie
German title The man with the 1000 faces
Original title Man of a Thousand Faces
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1957
length 122 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Joseph Pevney
script R. Wright Campbell
Ivan Goff
Ben Roberts
production Robert Arthur
music Frank Skinner
camera Russell Metty
cut Ted J. Kent
occupation

The Man with 1000 Faces is an American biography by Joseph Pevney from 1957. James Cagney plays the title character, Lon Chaney senior (1883–1930), known for his numerous horror roles in the silent film .

action

The United States at the turn of the century. In the early 1900s, the young up-and-coming entertainer Leonidas "Lon" Chaney made his way through the provinces with vaudeville appearances. His wife Cleva plays at his side. Both have a hard time making ends meet with their “art”. When Chaney gives up the variety shows, Cleva promptly becomes pregnant. Things seem to be looking better for the two of them when Lon is hired by the comedian duo Kolb & Dill for their next show. Cleva urges Lon to finally get his parents living in Colorado Springs, but he hesitates. Both parents are deaf and dumb , which he had never spoken to Cleva about. She is beside herself because she fears that her unborn child could also have this flaw. But it is already too late to have an abortion. Both children were born in 1906. It's a healthy boy, and he's called Creighton. After the early death of his father in 1930, the boy will also make a career in the horror film genre and, after his legendary father, call himself Lon Chaney junior .

Despite their son, Lons and Cleva's marriage begins to run into turmoil. Cleva takes a job as a singer in a nightclub and every time she goes to work, she hires son Creighton backstage with her also performing husband. In the meantime he befriends the choir singer Hazel Hastings, although this is a purely platonic "relationship". Hazel takes pleasure in looking after little Creighton when the parents are performing. When the boy falls ill, Lon, who does not agree with Cleva's career plans at all, ensures that Cleva's employment contract is no longer renewed. When an argument breaks out in her dressing room, Lon learns that Cleva has started an affair with a wealthy customer named Bill. When Cleva discovers that her husband Lon was the driving force behind her dismissal as a singer, she freaks out and yells at him. At that moment, Bill enters the room. Lon introduces himself as a debt collector for a debt collection company and claims that this time he wants to "cash in" his own wife. Bill, who didn't know about it, leaves the dressing room in disgust.

The real Lon Chaney

Lon returns to the theater, where he overhears Hazel apparently being molested by a tall, thin man. Lon hits the guy in the face and tells him to get up again. Hazel explains to Lon that the person lying on the ground cannot do this easily. When the man pulls up his pant legs, Chaney realizes that the guy has two wooden legs. It's Carl Hastings, Hazel's ex-husband, deeply bitter after an accident that cost him both legs. Lon wants to comfort Hazel and puts his hands on her shoulders, when Cleva enters her husband's changing room. Cleva Chaney gets angry again because she misunderstood the situation and yells at Lon that she is definitely not going to play nanny for both sons so that her husband Lon can fool around with this choir girl. Then she disappears. Days later, Lon appeared in a performance in a clown costume when a completely deranged Cleva stumbled onto the stage and in front of the audience took a strong sip from a bottle of acid that will burn her vocal cords forever. Cleva is then taken to a hospital, from which she soon escapes. The scandal shakes the theater world and ruins Chaney's career in vaudeville because he is blamed for Cleva's fate. The father is particularly angry that the state is now trying to take his son away from him. Chaney's press agent Clarence Locan advises Lon to seek his fortune in Hollywood movies .

Shortly before the First World War, Chaney was able to get hold of his first extra roles, and due to his hard work, he soon played regular roles. He brings the most important basic concepts in terms of facial make-up in and developed thanks to his great success as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame , a specialist in unusual roles in which masks and disguises are in the foreground. His overwhelming success as The Phantom of the Opera marks Chaney's ultimate breakthrough as Hollywood's greatest horror movie star. From then on he is known as "The Man with the 1000 Masks". Lon's career took off in the second half of the 1920s and he was regained custody of Creighton. To spare the young man the illusion of his depraved mother's return, Lon Chaney claims that Cleva has since passed away. But one day she suddenly appears at the door and wants to spend more time with her son. Hazel gently teaches Creighton the truth, whereupon the son angrily leaves his father to move in with his mother.

Meanwhile, the age of talkies has dawned in Hollywood. During the filming of the horror story The Unholy Three , it is revealed that Chaney has bronchial cancer . Hazel and Lons press agent Locan, who find out about this, agree not to tell Lon about it. Meanwhile, Creighton Chaney is reconciled with his father, and the two of them go on a men's trip to Lon's mountain hut. Upon returning, however, the actor collapses and learns of his fatal illness. He spends the last remaining days at home in his deathbed. In the end he is no longer able to speak. Using sign language, he asks friends and family for forgiveness for the wrongdoings he has committed in his life. Lon gestures to Creighton to bring him his makeup case. There he added a "Jr." after his own name with his last bit of strength, underscoring that he would appreciate it if the son followed in his footsteps and continued his life's work. Creighton leaves the room with the make-up kit and decides to become a film actor.

Production notes

The Man with the 1000 Faces was created in the winter of 1956/57 at Universal Studios and was premiered on August 13, 1957. The German premiere was on November 19, 1957.

The film structures were designed by Alexander Golitzen and Eric Orbom , and Russell A. Gausman was responsible for the equipment . The photographic special effects were created by Clifford Stine . The costumes are from Bill Thomas , Cagey's wardrobe was contributed by Marilyn Sotto . Joseph Gershenson took care of the orchestration of Frank Skinner's composition. Bud Westmore was responsible for the numerous film masks Lon Chaney / James Cagneys.

The three screenwriters R. Wright Campbell , Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts as well as the author of the story template Ralph Wheelwright received an Oscar nomination.

Clarence Kolb , an early companion of the stage artist Chaney, played himself here and also served as an advisor (for the Chaney scenes with the duo Kolb & Dill). It was to be the last film role of the then almost 83-year-old Kolb.

Jeanne Cagney , who embodies Carrie Chaney, was James Cagey's sister, 20 years her junior.

Reviews

In retrospect, star critic Pauline Kael found in the 1970s that "the script and the conception were so maudlin and humiliating" and that "it made Cagey's great devotion somehow oppressive".

The lexicon of international films says: "Sometimes too sentimental, the film nevertheless offers interesting insights into the early American film industry."

Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide called the film an "astonishingly devoted and well-acted biography" and found that "Chaney's life and film career have been tastefully restored".

Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: "Passably recommendable film biography with a strong sense for the Hollywood of those years, an excellent star performance but too foamy dramatization of the deaf and mute parents and the ungrateful wife."

Individual evidence

  1. The man with the 1000 faces. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 9, 2019 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. Leonard Maltin: Movie & Video Guide, edition 1996, p f 821st
  3. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 646

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