Previous Events > The Unknown
The Unknown (Browning, 1927, 62m)
Date: 17 October 2009
Location: Trinity Centre, Old Market, Bristol
Time: 20:00
In this typically bizarre Lon Chaney/Tod Browning collaboration Chaney plays an armless knife thrower (Alonso) who is infatuated with beautiful bareback-riding carnival girl, Estrella (played by the very young Joan Crawford). Using his feet to perform a circus knife-throwing act Alonso masquerades as armless only to evade the law. However, on discovering Estrella’s fear of being touched by men Alonso, desire-crazed and love-blind, decides to have his arms amputated in an attempt to win her heart, with devastating results… One of the great silent movies, astonishing in its intensity and unrivalled in the twenties for its exploration of dark-side of human emotion, The Unknown is a remarkably perverse and brilliant tale of passion, lust and obsession.
John Sweeney started playing for silent movies in 1990 at Riverside Studios Cinema in London and has since played many places including the National Film Theatre, the Barbican Cinema, Nottingham Broadway and the Cambridge Film Festival. Playing at the Giornate in Italy since 2000, he has also worked extensively in the field of contemporary dance, both as a composer and a pianist.
This event is presented by The Compass Festivsal in partnership with Bristol Silents as part of their Compass West: America programme
Not only a silent film screening buit so much more:
In the seedy cellars and back allies of 1920s America, gangsters and molls gather in town’s hottest Speak Easy where the Madame, matriarch of the house, waits to welcome her punters, including some of the hood’s most notorious characters… Roxanne props up the bar, as the local mobsters gamble at a table in the corner…
In addtion to THE UNKNOWN screening on the bill tonight are dancers, singers, magicians and circus performers.… A slick night out in the city was never so enticing!
See more content about other events in the Exclusive Content Area >>
Location: Trinity Centre, Old Market, Bristol
Time: 20:00
In this typically bizarre Lon Chaney/Tod Browning collaboration Chaney plays an armless knife thrower (Alonso) who is infatuated with beautiful bareback-riding carnival girl, Estrella (played by the very young Joan Crawford). Using his feet to perform a circus knife-throwing act Alonso masquerades as armless only to evade the law. However, on discovering Estrella’s fear of being touched by men Alonso, desire-crazed and love-blind, decides to have his arms amputated in an attempt to win her heart, with devastating results… One of the great silent movies, astonishing in its intensity and unrivalled in the twenties for its exploration of dark-side of human emotion, The Unknown is a remarkably perverse and brilliant tale of passion, lust and obsession.
John Sweeney started playing for silent movies in 1990 at Riverside Studios Cinema in London and has since played many places including the National Film Theatre, the Barbican Cinema, Nottingham Broadway and the Cambridge Film Festival. Playing at the Giornate in Italy since 2000, he has also worked extensively in the field of contemporary dance, both as a composer and a pianist.
This event is presented by The Compass Festivsal in partnership with Bristol Silents as part of their Compass West: America programme
Not only a silent film screening buit so much more:
In the seedy cellars and back allies of 1920s America, gangsters and molls gather in town’s hottest Speak Easy where the Madame, matriarch of the house, waits to welcome her punters, including some of the hood’s most notorious characters… Roxanne props up the bar, as the local mobsters gamble at a table in the corner…
In addtion to THE UNKNOWN screening on the bill tonight are dancers, singers, magicians and circus performers.… A slick night out in the city was never so enticing!
See more content about other events in the Exclusive Content Area >>
