his central themes in The Unknown: the linkage of physical deformity with sexual frustration. Circus performer "Alonzo the armless", a Gypsy knife-thrower, appears as a double amputee, casting his knives with his feet. His deformity is an illusion (except for a bifid thumb), achieved by donning a corset to bind and conceal his healthy arms. The able-bodied Alonzo, sought by the police, engages in this deception to evade detection and arrest. Alonzo harbors a secret love for Nanon (Joan Crawford), his assistant in the act. Nanon's father is the abusive (perhaps sexually so) ringmaster Zanzi (Nick De Ruiz), and Nanon has developed a pathological aversion to any man's embrace. Her emotional dysfunction precludes any sexual intimacy with the highly virile strong-man, Malabar, or Alonzo, his own sexual prowess symbolized by his knife-throwing expertise and his double thumb. When Alonzo murders Zanzi during an argument, the homicide is witnessed by Nanon, who detects only the bifid thumb of her father's assailant. Browning's theme of sexual frustration and physical mutilation ultimately manifests itself in Alonzo's act of symbolic castration; he willingly has his arms amputated by an unlicensed surgeon so as to make himself unthreatening to Nanon (and to eliminate the incriminating bifid thumb), so as to win her affection. The "nightmarish irony" of Alonzo's sacrifice is the most outrageous of Browning's plot conceits and consistent with his obsessive examination of "sexual frustration and emasculation". When Alonzo recovers from his surgery, he returns to the circus to find that Nanon has overcome her sexual aversions and married the strongman Malabar (Norman Kerry). The primal ferocity of Alonzo's reaction to Nanon's betrayal in marrying Malabar is instinctual. Film historian Stuart Rosenthal writes: Alonzo's efforts at retribution lead to his own horrific death in a "Grand Guignol finale". The Unknown is widely regarded as the most outstanding of the Browning-Chaney collaborations and a masterpiece of the late silent film era. Film critic Scott Brogan regards The Unknown worthy of "cult status." The Big City (1928) A lost film, The Big City stars Lon Chaney, Marceline Day and Betty Compson, the latter in her only appearance in an M-G-M film. Browning wrote the story and Waldemar Young the screenplay concerning "A gangster Lon Chaney who uses a costume jewelry store as a front for his jewel theft operation. After a conflict with a rival gang, he and his girlfriend Marceline Day reform." Film historian Vivian