Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)

Man of a Thousand Faces

This is a fantastic bio. Thank your lucky stars that Universal reissued it. I only wish that the makeup dealing with Lon Chaney was not underplayed. James Cagney was terrific and so were Dorothy Malone and Jane Greer. If you haven't seen it, SEE IT! July 17, 2008

Cagney - Man Of A Thousand Parts

MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES is one of Hollywood's better films about Hollywood! Produced by Universal International in 1957 it recounts the life and times of one of filmdom's most famous sons - Lon Chaney.
From an excellent Oscar nominated screenplay by R. Wright Cambell, Ivan
Goff and Ben Roberts it was directed with a deft hand by Joseph Pevney.
Pevney - a supporting player in such movies as "Body & Soul" (1947) and
"Street With No Name" (1948) - directed some of Universal's biggest productions i.e. "Away All Boats" (1956), "Tammy" (1957) and one of Errol
Flynn's last efforts "Istanbul" (1957).
Playing the leading role in this marvellous biopic is James Cagney who gives an outstanding measured performance as Lon Chaney, the strange tortured character actor of the silent screen and who, ironically, died from throat cancer with the advent of talking pictures.

Crisply photographed in black & white Cinemascope by the great Russell
Metty ("Touch Of Evil") the picture carries a strong sense of time and place. Expertly evoked is Vaudeville in the early part of the century where Chaney began as a song-and-dance man (Cagney delighting us with his
stylish brand of hoofing) and early Hollywood where he became an Extra
at Universal studios. Then with the help of his make-up box and his
uncanny facility to alter his appearance - sometimes resulting in great pain - he became known as The Man Of A 1000 Faces.
Notable reconstructions of Chaney's creations are quite brilliantly achieved in the picture. Cagney excels as the cripple being cured in a reworking of Chaney's famous scene from "The Miracle Man" (1919) and the phantom being unmasked in "Phantom Of The Opera" (1925) but especially noteworthy is Chaney's "The Hunchback Of Notre Dame" (1923). Here Cagney is totally unrecognisable as he replicates Chaney's interpretation of Quasimodo being whipped on the punishment wheel in the village square. It is an intense moment in this picture and a remarkable achievement for Cagney the consummate actor. Watching him in this movie it is little wonder the great Orson Welles declared in the seventies that Cagney was the screen's greatest actor.

Others in the cast of this splendid film are Dorothy Malone, giving an
excellent performance as the singer and Chaney's first wife Cleva Creighton, Jane Greer as his second wife, Jim Backus as his Press Agent and Robert Evans as the boy wonder of the Motion Picture business, Irving Thalberg.
The picture also boasts a terrific music score by the underrated and now
wholly forgotten composer Frank Skinner (1897/1968). Skinner was composer in residence at Universal for many years and scored most of their prestigious productions such as "Tap Roots" (1948), "Magnificent Obsession" (1954), "Madame X" (1965) and "Shenandoah" (1965). "Man Of
A 1000 Faces" was, however, his greatest achievement. A soundtrack album of his music from ".....Faces" - issued at the time of the picture's release - is now a much sought after recording.

A wonderful movie on DVD presented in a sharp black & white widescreen format that every collector will want to own if only for Cagney's amazing performance. His Lon Chaney is just as powerful and just as memorable as his George M. Cohan, Cody Jarret and Marty "The Gimp" Snyder!
April 1, 2008

Perhaps Cagney's finest performance in a mature role

Cagney plays Lon Chaney in this film about the great imitator's life. Chaney himself was a very private person, prefering the quiet of hearth and home to the wild Hollywood night life. Hollywood was where he worked, not a way of life. In this way both he and the man who plays him (James Cagney) have much in common.

Cagney and Chaney looked totally different, yet Cagney makes this role work. In Cagney's biography "Cagney on Cagney", he admits that the story takes certain liberties with Chaney's life as most biopics do, but there are many actual events in Chaney's life that are in the movie. Chaney was indeed the child of two deaf mute parents - he got his gift for pantomime in communicating with them. His first marriage was a rocky one, just as the film portrays. Whether the trouble started over his first wife believing that their child would be deaf and being horrified by the possibility as is portrayed in the film I don't know, but given early 20th century attitudes toward disability it is entirely possible.

The film whether accurate or not, was a loving tribute to Chaney that was instrumental in a revival of interest in his films. I consider this to be possibly Cagney's best performance in a mature role with maybe the exception of 1956's "These Wilder Years", also not on DVD, or VHS for that matter.

There are no details on extra features at this point. March 23, 2008

Universal will release this film on DVD in June 2008

Ten years to the month after Image Entertainment released Man of a Thousand Faces (1957), Universal will come out with a new release. The Image copy is out of print, so don't despair at the high current price. The new release will retail for just under twenty dollars. No further details at this time other than this link to the new product at this site - Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) (Ws Sub Dol). This film was probably Cagney's best performance in a mature role, so I'm certainly looking forward to this.
March 20, 2008

SOMEONE SHOULD DO A REMAKE OF THIS FILM! OOP DVD?? NEEDS A SPECIAL EDITION FOR RELEASE!

Lon Chaney amazed audiences in the birth of cinema. Born to deaf parents Lon learned out of necessity to use his hands and face to communicate with his parents. This made Lon a natural in the world of silent pictures. No one could come close to his expressive acting talent. If this was his only asset he would still be remembered today but, Mr. Chaney was also an incredible make-up artist and designed some of the greatest make-ups that are still unsurpassed to this day. His imagination and ingenuity were remarkable and I'm sure my favorite make -up artist Jack Pierce was in awe of this fellow artist. This film starring James Cagney is very good but it is out of print on DVD and there should be a special edition of this film. This film would be a great candidate for a remake. With all the lame movies coming out these days someone please make a movie about this man, he deserves to have an in-depth film about him. This one is for my buddy Clint who just happens to think the man of a thousand faces is the man of infinite faces! November 23, 2007

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