Arrow Blu-ray Film Review

Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) • Blu-ray [Arrow Academy]

The life and career of vaudevillian and silent screen horror star Lon Chaney, including his contentious relationship with his neurotic wife and his premature death.

The two audiences Man of a Thousand Faces appeals to are fans of Jimmy Cagney (as this is the most interesting of his later roles) and film buffs (as this is the first time Hollywood produced a biopic about one of their own). Here we have one of the top actors of the ‘talkies’ playing one of the towering talents of the silent age, Lon Chaney.

The two problems Man of a Thousand Faces falls foul of are that biopics are generally predictable (especially if you know something about their subject) and they’re bound by the dominant attitudes of the times they portray, as well as the times in which they were made. Here we have a film that examines the prejudices of the 1910s through the lens of the uptight 1950s. It’s bound to seem very dated when viewed from a distance of 50 years!