Man Of A Thousand Faces (1957) TVRip (SiRiUs sHaRe)

Man Of A Thousand Faces (1957)

Loose biography of actor Lon Chaney. Growing up with deaf parents, he learns what it is like to be different. As an actor, he puts that knowledge (together with lots of make-up and talent) to use playing a variety of strange, unusual characters, adopting their characteristics so thoroughly as to be called the Man of a Thousand Faces.

James Cagney ... Lon Chaney
Dorothy Malone ... Cleva Creighton Chaney
Jane Greer ... Hazel Bennett Chaney
Marjorie Rambeau ... Gert a movie extra
Jim Backus ... Clarence Locan
Robert Evans ... Irving Thalberg (as Robert J. Evans)
Celia Lovsky ... Mrs. Chaney
Jeanne Cagney ... Carrie Chaney
Jack Albertson ... Dr. J. Wilson Shields
Nolan Leary ... Pa Chaney
Roger Smith ... Creighton Chaney at 21
Robert Lyden ... Creighton Chaney at 13
Rickie Sorensen ... Creighton Chaney at 8
Dennis Rush ... Creighton Chaney at 4
Simon Scott ... Carl Hastings

Director: Joseph Pevney

Runtime: 122 mins

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050681/

Codecs:

Video : 931 MB, 1062 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 720*480 (4:3), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4,
Audio : 168 MB, 192 Kbps, 44100 Hz, 2 channels, 0x55 = MPEG Layer-3, VBR,

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Loving (and fictional) tribute to Lon Chaney--actor and makeup artist who was in such classics as "Phantom of the Opera" and the "Hunchback of Notre Dame".

There are plenty of things wrong with this movie--James Cagney looks NOTHING like Lon Chaney--Chaney was tall and kind of mean-looking with a thin face; Cagney is short, pleasant-looking with a round face; GREAT liberties were taken with Chaney's real-life story (he was not the saint this movie paints him to be); the recreations of Phantom and Notre Dame just look silly; every show business cliché imaginable is shoe-horned into this and they totally ignore the fact that Chaney was actually pretty abusive to his son.

That aside...this IS a good movie.

It's well done and beautifully shot in wide screen and black and white; Dorothy Malone does wonders with an underwritten role; ditto for Jane Greer; the movies moves fairly quickly and is always absorbing (I was never bored) and Cagney is just great! His performance is flawless--very well-acted, convincing and sympathetic. He does try to recreate Chaney's roles--he's good but the guy is buried under tons of makeup and is VERY uncomfortable (it shows).

Still for a Hollywood biography this is pretty damn good. Just don't accept it for a minute as the gospel truth.

I'd love to know what Lon Chaney Jr. thought of this--or if he ever saw it!

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It was interesting to see the difference of opinion of previous reviewers of Man of a Thousand Faces. I fall into the category of loving this particular film. I think it was James Cagney's finest piece of thespianism. How he was overlooked in the Oscar sweepstakes for this performance is beyond me.

It's so far from anything Cagney had ever done before. And he got to use all his talents, acting and musical, as the beginning had Lon Chaney on the vaudeville stage doing his pantomime act.

Lon Chaney's was born to deaf mute parents and learned to sign to communicate with them. That led to his interest in pantomime, a stage career in vaudeville and finally silent movies.

The film plays fast and loose with the facts of Chaney's life, but I think it captures the spirit of the man who created for the silent screen so many tortured souls.

Dorothy Malone and Jane Greer play wives one and two. Dorothy Malone had just come off an Oscar the year before in Written on the Wind. This is a marvelous followup part for an actress that for ten years was thought as little more than ornamental. Jane Greer is also good as the wise and patient second wife who knows she's playing second fiddle to the relationship of father and son.

Universal was Chaney's home studio and the studio approached the making of this picture with reverence and care for it's first great star.

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I read an other comment on this film about the life of Lon Chaney and I agree that it is a terrible biography about the great actor, but what was neglected was to say that this film was a showcase for James Cagney. Cagney had become typecast in his gangster roles and wanted to show his other talents and that is exactly what this film does. Although the acting is undeniably Cagney it still shows a range not possible in his hoodlum roles. Like some of his other "breakout" films like Yankee Doodle Dandy, Cagney shows his range of emotion, mimicry and skill.

I originally saw this as a kid who was in love with the old horror classics of my day and this film did inspire me to search out and see the older films. The black and white silent films where actors had to act to convey the story. They had to overplay their parts to make up for the lack of words. That is what you see from Cagney in the short sequences meant to recreate the filming of those great silent Chaney films. I highly recommend it to any film lover.

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# This film starring James Cagney as Lon Chaney shows Chaney making a scene in The Miracle Man (1919). That film was based on a novel by Frank L. Packard and its stage adaptation by George M. Cohan, who acted in it himself (not in the same part as Chaney, though). And in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Cagney had played Cohan.