About

Organist David Bailey accompanies the silent horror classic The Unknown 1927 on the Gallery’s 1929 Wurlitzer organ. The film screens from a newly restored 35mm print.

Directed by master of the macabre Tod Browning – the filmmaker behind such classics as Dracula 1931 and Freaks 1932 – The Unknown follows the treacherous path of Lon Chaney's ‘Alonzo the Armless’, a circus performer who will do anything to keep his terrible secret.

Lost for decades, the film was rediscovered in partial form at the Cinémathèque Française in 1968. This incomplete version was further expanded by the recent discovery of a nitrate print at the National Film Archive in Prague, bringing the film back to a near-complete 68 minutes. Restored by the George Eastman Museum in New York, this spine-tingling masterpiece screens from a new 35mm print that showcases the full gothic power of Browning's vision.