The Unholy Three

1925 drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A ventriloquist, a strong man, and a little person break free from a side show to live a life of crime. They come up with an ingenious plan involving cross-dressing, a giant monkey, and parrots. When a couple things don't go according to plan, the trio struggle to keep things together.

Let's go over this again. There's a cross-dressing ventriloquist, a strong man, and a little person disguised as a baby using parrots to rob people? And there's a giant killer monkey and a puppet? I'm in! This is a very strange film for the mid-20s, not surprising I suppose since it's a Tod Browning production with the always odd-looking Lon Chaney, an actor who didn't exactly avoid bizarre roles. Actually, it's not a great movie, more like an extremely silly one, but there are so many ideas straight from left field, that it's hard not to like the thing. I always enjoy Chaney, and he's good here playing a criminal with too much heart. I could have probably played a ventriloquist in a movie from this time period though. The little person (Harry Earles, playing a character named Tweedledee) is also really good, expertly transitioning from a mean little criminal to a baby and vice versa. There are some funny camera effects used to make the monkey seem gigantic and deadly, really succeeding only in making the monkey appear to change sizes from scene to scene. There's also a really goofy courtroom scene that leads to a completely unbelievable ending. Still, this is a silent oddball that is worth checking out.