This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Actually weaker in many ways than its sound remake (I'm as surprised as you are, folks), but still packs many well-placed punches. One area in which it does outclass the later version is the ape: The remake has your standard classic Hollywood dude in an ape suit, while in this one Tod Browning opts for an actual chimpanzee, slowed down and made to look massive through various optical tricks. It's not any more realistic, but a hell of a lot more surreal.

This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Actually weaker in many ways than its sound remake (I'm as surprised as you are, folks), but still packs many well-placed punches. One area in which it does outclass the later version is the ape: The remake has your standard classic Hollywood dude in an ape suit, while in this one Tod Browning opts for an actual chimpanzee, slowed down and made to look massive through various optical tricks. It's not any more realistic, but a hell of a lot more surreal.

I think it was when the chimpanzee methodically attacked Lon Chaney, like it's a remake of He Who Gets Slapped with an anthropomorphic tiger, that I finally picked up on the Keystone vibe, and that’s after Tweety, Sylvester, and Granny team up to rob banks beneath cartoon speech bubbles. Turns out this circus freak murder flick isn't a romantic horror (although Browning plays with spooky shadows and towering trees twisting over unrequited love scenes) but a proto-gangster picture, complete with a bobbing elephant ticking like a bomb and the gradual cluttering of the frame as things get complicated. A side-eye edit and a score that veers from rockabilly to music-box to '60s sitcom cues conspire to overthrow the movie, but it's still interesting to see Browning take things in a different direction from his later work.

Tod Browning sure likes his freaks.

The plot was too thin for me to get too involved with it. The brilliant scheme to make them millions? Echo disguises himself as an elderly lady who runs a bird shop. Using his ventriloquism skills, he sells the birds to rich people who believe the parrots can talk. When they call to say the parrot isn't talking, he visits their house to see what they have to steal. And of course, every time he visits, they are sitting around their safe displaying all their most valuable possessions. Sounds like it could've been a good black comedy, but it opts for a more serious tone which doesn't quite work because of the silliness.

Chaney was good and Earles was good, but not enough to make the film that enjoyable. I liked parts of the score, but it was such a mishmash of styles that it got distracting when it jumped to the next one.

Feels in many ways like a warm-up for The Unknown. They're both about a criminal element that goes to absurd lengths to hide their crimes from the authorities, they both hinge on unrequited love for Chaney's character (what else is new), they both have a heavy dose of circus/carnival atmosphere, and they're both more interested in shocking the audience than being realistic or "believable." But the shocks are a little less shocking, the emotions a little less feverish, and the plot a little less jolting and roller-coaster-like.

That being said, seeing The Unholy Three on a beautifully restored print and with a live score ranks as one of the best movie theater experiences of my life, and don't get the idea this movie doesn't have teeth, especially if you haven't seen The Unknown.

Weird Tod Browning silent crime film stars Chaney Sr. as ventriloquist Dr. Echo, who starts a pet shop in an elaborate break and enter scheme along with his cronies, who disguise themselves as his family. It’s a pretty well paced silent film, but it seems mostly just a set-up for an intriguing court room scene: get an innocent man on the stand and have him mouth the words while a ventriloquist provides the real evidence. Chaney dominates the film, mostly without make-up, and is impressive in his role, as is the midget character, disguised as a baby, who would later star in Browning’s Freaks.