A monkey for (unofficial) Monkey Day.

 

Cotton candy for (National) Cotton Candy Day. Gifs via Little Horror Shop on Tumblr.

“When a boy loses his job, buys a new suit and takes a girl to Coney Island, he's either insane or in love – – and there's not much difference.”

– title card

Pearls worn for National Wear Your Pearls Day (USA). No one said those pearls were to be worn in the obvious place.

Someone's hugged on Lets Hug Day (USA)

 

Nanon Zanzi (Joan Crawford) is mortally afraid of men. Of their grabbing, grasping, groping hands. This is why she only trusts her knife throwing partner Alonzo the Armless (Lon Chaney). What she doesn't know is that Alonzo and his 4'10”/1,47 m accomplice Cojo (that great staple of precode horror Tufei Filhela aka John George), use the #circus to hide from the long arm of the law, who is looking for a murderer with a deformed thumb. Who would suspect an armless man?

“Men! The beasts! God would show wisdom if he took the hands from all of them!”

– Nanon Zanzi

As mighty as Alonzo may be, the incomparable Lon Chaney owes much to armless violinist and knife thrower “Judge” Paul Desmuke. Story goes that Desmuke taught Chaney his knife act in two months. More probable is that some of the more impressive close-up scenes show the Judge's, not Chaney's, feet.

 

Like Alonzo, The Unknown has lost some flesh. Until 1968, only mangled bootlegs were available; a complete print was considered non-existent. Five years later, news broke about film reels of unknown origin labelled inconnu – [the] unknown, somewhere in the bowels of the Cinémathèque Française.

 

Some 14 minutes, outlining the Armless' background, are still missing. Do check your attic.

Two hopelessly lonely hearts meet each other at Coney Island, spending the most wonderful day in each other's company. Pál Fejős' joyful Lonesome was made just when motion pictures became talkies, and new and more modern novelties were expected by the audience. Fejős delivers, with sound and musical inserts, and the occasional – almost shocking – burst of colour.

– Nice day, isn't it? – Yes, isn't it! – It's swell. It's perfect.

With light touches of Murnau's groundbreaking Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and Jean Vigo's more experimental À propos de Nice (1930), Lonesome depicts the exuberance of youth with an optimism soon to be lost to the vices of history.