Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) on Netflix
In the early 1900s, vaudeville actor Lon Chaney performs with his wife, Cleva. She expects a child, learns that his parents are deaf, and fears the baby will be too.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Lon Chaney makes his start in vaudeville, where he performs alongside his wife, Cleva. He quits the act, and she tells him she is pregnant. Learning that his parents are deaf, she worries that the baby she carries will be deaf as well. Their son, Creighton, is born hearing, yet the marriage frays over the years that follow. Cleva takes a singing job at a nightclub, and Lon grows close to chorus girl Hazel Hastings, who helps mind the baby. When Creighton falls ill at the theater, Lon's complaint to Cleva's employer costs her the job. Lon also finds Hazel accosted in a corridor and punches her attacker, whose wooden legs reveal him as Carl Hastings, her former husband. Press agent Clarence Locan counsels Lon to try motion pictures, and Lon heads for Hollywood as an extra.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Lon Chaney had said in interviews that he did not want his son Creighton to become an actor, the opposite of the film's conclusion; at the time of his father's death, Creighton was working at a water-heater company.SPOILER
In the film, Lon Chaney dies at home with family and friends, but in reality he died in his hospital room after a throat hemorrhage.- For The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, James Cagney's face was partly immobile behind an elaborate full latex mask, while the real Chaney prided himself on distorting his looks with minimal makeup.
- Creighton Chaney began film work billed under his birth name, and only in the mid-1930s, at the insistence of film producers, allowed himself to be billed as Lon Chaney Jr., a name he was ashamed of.
