“We come to life, we die… It's a perpetual renewal. How boring.”

– Mibu

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.

Just before leaving home for a business trip, a father asks his three daughters what he can bring them as a return gift. The eldest two ask for silly, extravagant things. A monkey! A parrot! The youngest simply wishes the most beautiful flower which the father finds in an enchanted garden, guarded by a terrible beast. And will pay for with his life unless he gives his youngest away to the beast, to die in his place.

– Can such miracles really happen? – You and I are living proof.

#Cocteau and Clément's La Belle et la Bête is of course based on Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's fairy-tale, which on its turn was based on the classic myth of Cupid and Psyche.

“This we do for pleasure, so that we may shortly be at the mercy of venomous snakes and poisonous ants. How foolish can human creatures be.”

– Miss McCraw

It's not possible to be in nature, one can only be absorbed by it.

“The vicinity is reknowned for its venomous snakes and poisonous ants of various species. It is, however, a geological marvel.”

– Mrs. Appleyard

One of the most elaborately recorded “feral child” cases is that of the Wild Boy of Aveyron. In the year 1800, after few fruitless attempts to bound him to civilisation, a young boy left the forests of Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance and settled in. The child's primal appearance and lack of speech labeled him an idiot. However, in the era of Enlightenment, the question of nurture versus nature was a pressing one. Studies on Victor began.

“I'm glad that you came home. Do you understand? This is your home. You're no longer a wild boy, even if you're not yet a man.”

– Dr. Itard

Truffaut explores L'enfant sauvage right when the idea of the noble savage seemed to lock on with counterculture. With #Truffaut as Victor's tutor Itard in front of the camera, directly guiding amateur child actor (and “gipsy”) Cargol, the film not only reimagines Victor's fate, but reenacts Western presumed enlightenment over The Other.

With their mother bedridden, Elisabeth (Nicole Stéphane) nurtures her snowball-fight-injured brother Paul (Edouard Dermithe) back to health.

“Their heritage of instability, extravagant caprice, and natural elegance was their paternal portion.”

– Jean Cocteau, Les enfants terribles (1929)

Withdrawn in their family home, they form a strong manipulative bond, drawing others into their games.

Four years after the tragic events at Loudun. Mother superior, the titular Mother Joan, is still possessed by the Devil and has slowly pulled in the other sisters. A priest, the fourth one, is send to the convent to exorcise the demons who at this point have possessed all but one sister. Chaos ensues.

“If one can't be saint, it's better to be damned.”

– Mother Joan of the Angels

At a bacchanalia, Rock Hudson's Antiochus Wilson finally strips down his hesitancy and realises he has a second chance at life, as a member of the new generation. To the Queen of wine! To Bacchus! To Pan!

“Bacchus gives us his blood so we may be born again.”

Director of photography James Wong Howe's very controlled framing of the (initially censored) pre-Woodstock #Bacchana​lian scene beautifully frames this pinnacle moment and proved almost too much for American censors.