America is a country justifiably proud of its cutural diversity. We currently encourage, more than ever before, respect for individuality. Many decades earlier, one performer uniquely epitomized our modern commitment to this concept. That performer was silent film icon Lon Chaney, Sr.
Stephen King and the "Mutant"
Stephen King contends our fascination with many horror short stories, novels, and films is because of what he calls the "Mutant"--that character whose presence frightens us because of incongruity between definitions of the normal and the abnormal. This archetype, or "outsider," best illustrated, according to King, by the Frankenstein monster, often causes society to take adverse action. This may be due, as King argues, to a deformity of some kind that makes that character seem disturbingly "different" from others. The "Mutant" forces us to confront our own lack of understanding and acceptance of others' differences.
Chaney, Sr. and Horror
There was no more skilled artist capable of evoking this self-reflection than Lon Chaney, Sr. Although primarily regarded today as a horror film star, Chaney actually played only two roles that could technically be called "horror" parts, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925). These "Beauty and the Beast" characters drew on his mastery of both makeup and pantomime to bring to life their humanity and suffering. Chaney obviously had great empathy for society's outcasts, having grown up with deaf and mute parents and learned sign language at an early age in order to communicate with them. This empathy, stemming from his awareness of his own parents' "differences," suffused all of his roles, most notably those character parts in which he directly challenged Americans' attitudes toward the physically disabled as "mutants."
Chaney, Sr. and the Physically Disabled
Chaney's most memorable physically disabled characters are Blizzard, the double-amputee criminal of The Penalty (1920), Alonzo, the armless circus knife-thrower of The Unknown (1927), and Phroso, the wheelchair-bound ex-magician of West of Zanzibar (1928). In The Penalty, Blizzard loves the daughter (Claire Adams) of the quack doctor (Charles Clary) who had amputated his legs at the knees when he was a child, and now wants to kill his rival (Kenneth Harlan) for his legs, which he wants grafted onto his own body. In The Unknown, Alonzo has his own arms amputated in order to win the love of his sexually frigid assistant, Nanon (Joan Crawford), who has a phobia of being embraced by men. When she overcomes this fear and falls in love with his rival, Malabar, the circus Strong Man (Norman Kerry), he tries to contrive an "accident" that will rend Malabar's arms from his sockets. In West of Zanzibar, Phroso discovers that his wife (Jacqueline Gadsden) is having an affair with an African ivory trader (Lionel Barrymore), and injures his own spine in a fight with his rival. He then embarks on an elaborate plan of revenge against the young woman he thinks is their offspring (Mary Nolan), not realizing, until it is nearly too late, that she is his own daughter.
Victims, Not "Mutants"
Despite each character's obsessiveness and desire for revenge, these are not "mutants," but victims of society, or of unrequited love--or both. Chaney portrays these "misfits" with sensitivity, causing viewers to, if not condone their actions, at least empathize with their suffering and rejection. All three films draw attention to the plight of the physically disabled.
Conclusion: "Man of a Thousand Consciences"
Lon Chaney, Sr., then, was a most unique figure in America cinema: a performer who asked us to recognize that our society's physically disabled "mutants" are not so different than we ourselves are. Lon Chaney, Sr. was more than the "Man of a Thousand Faces": he was the "Man of a Thousand Consciences."
