The Unholy Three

Greed, egoism and grueling love; Browning is both roguish and somber when he deals with this stuff. There's some really extraordinary sequences here and the ending is painful and masterful.

This was a twisted and darkly humorous little thriller. The ending was a bit of a letdown but otherwise, this was a solidly entertaining tale.

Has pacing problems, which is typical of Browning's work, especially in the silent era, but there is enough eccentricity to keep it watchable, and Chaney is always compelling. It's hard not to agree with other reviews that it should have been a black comedy though, and the melodrama is not always convincing.

Decent humour and the love drama isn't too heavy-handed.

78.000

Freaks' Harry Doll Earles inspired Baby Herman and might be Chucky. Excellent black comedy like pre-Ealing comedy capers.

I wasn't really sure quite what tone this was going for. It's definitely too silly for me to get properly invested in the drama, but it also seems to be straining to be taken at least somewhat seriously which made the sillier aspects hard to enjoy in their own right. The final scene was played perfectly though.

The plot was too thin for me to get too involved with it. It sounds like it could've been a good black comedy, but it opts for a more serious tone which doesn't quite work because of the silliness. Chaney and Earles were good, but not enough to make the film that enjoyable. I liked parts of the score, but it was such a mishmash of styles that it got distracting when it jumped to the next one.

It was a very meh movie. I felt pretty uncomfortable with whoever's idea to take this plot and make it a melodrama. I feel pretty confident that the sound remake with Chaney running several different voices would have been at minimum watchable.