RetroClips

Lon Chaney kept his arms bound to his torso for months to play Alonzo convincingly, in a performance built entirely around a secret the plot keeps twisting: Alonzo isn't really armless, and that lie is what eventually drives him to demand actual, surgical self-mutilation later in the film. It's one of silent horror's most disturbing love stories, and one of the earliest films to give a young Joan Crawford real screen presence.