Man of a Thousand Faces

Released Aug 13, 1957

2h 2m

Biography

List

89%

9 Reviews

Tomatometer

78%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Lon Chaney (James Cagney) is a charismatic young man breaking into vaudeville as a juggler and mime. He falls in love with his new assistant, Cleva (Dorothy Malone), but when he reveals that he grew up as the son of two deaf-mute parents, she reacts with horror and disgust. The psychologically unbalanced Cleva leaves Chaney shortly after their son is born, but when he moves to Hollywood, remarries and becomes a movie star, she returns in an attempt to get back into her son's life.

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Steve D

Unpleasant and offensive.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

07/08/23

Full Review

kevin w

Twenty-seven years after his death Universal Pictures decided to resurrect the memory of Lon Chaney, one of their most notable stars with a biopic, no doubt in part in an attempt to stave off the successes of the burgeoning television industry. Chaney made a splash as an actor who is remembered less for his theatrical chops than for his creativity with makeup. James Cagney, notable in his own right, plays Chaney as a workaholic soul who is only alive while performing, and so his life at home suffers. Dorothy Malone plays that life at home who chaffs in her thinly ascribed given role. What is most interesting about the work is the social stigma of the times about being mute, the truest chord in the film. In a slap in of the face of the subject himself the make-up of all things, is second-rate, go figure.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Crisply photographed in B&W Cinemascope, this overlong and rather pedestrian biopic of silent screen icon Lon Chaney is redeemed by decent performances, a lushly old-fashioned score from Frank Skinner, and a characteristically energetic and unsentimental James Cagney in the title-role. There are ridiculously melodramatic early scenes when Dorothy Malone has to be appalled to discover Chaney's parents are deaf. And Cagney is far too old to be the plausible ingenue of these early scenes. There's not enough focus on Chaney the performer either. If they had cut out half-an-hour and put some oomph in the script it would have been twice as interesting.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/27/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A loving tribute to horror royalty. Cagney does a solid job bringing Chaney to life, as he struggles to work his way up to legendary status. The wife is cartoonishly over-the-top with convincing you to hate her at the beginning, that it's hard to connect with her later on. Aside from that, it's a nice showcase of the legend.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

04/05/20

Full Review

Audience Member

I can't get rotten tomatoes to play the movie I don't know how to use rotten tomatoes

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/22/23

Full Review

joel h

The beginning of this biopic is overly melodramatic, but somewhere along the way Man of a Thousand Faces transformed into an engaging drama about an enigmatic man. I didn't know much about Lon Chaney going into it, and apparently parts of this film are highly fictionalized, but I enjoyed learning about the life of this iconic actor as he is played by another iconic actor, James Cagney.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

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Joseph Pevney

Director

James Cagney

Lon Chaney

Dorothy Malone

Cleva Creighton Chaney

Jane Greer

Hazel Bennet Chaney

Marjorie Rambeau

Gert

Jim Backus

Clarence Locan

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Jean Yothers

Orlando Sentinel

In Man of a Thousand Faces, the film biography' of Chaney... "the mystery man" comes to life again with all his greatness and strangeness.

Oct 8, 2021

Full Review

Chris Alexander

Alexander On Film

If you can suspend your disbelief, the lousy make-up doesn't detract from how beautiful, moving and loving a tribute to Chaney's legacy the film is.

Dec 16, 2019

Full Review

Clyde Gilmour

Maclean's Magazine

The picture is a bit too long and its sombre tone may irritate those customers who insist on ridiculing all old movies, but its rich sense of period and atmosphere and Cagney's superb performance make it an item worth seeing.

Nov 26, 2019

Full Review

Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

This is the usual Hollywood biopic that contains almost as much fiction as fact, but that doesn't dim enjoyment of this celebration of one of the all-time great horror stars.

Rated: 3/4

Nov 2, 2019

Full Review

Alberto Abuín

Espinof

'Man of a thousand faces' draws the figure of a myth, showing that you can get to the true essence of something, or someone, without being true to facts. [Full review in Spanish]

Oct 5, 2016

Full Review

Randy Shulman

Metro Weekly (Washington, DC)

Rated: 4/5

Jul 22, 2005

Full Review

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Synopsis

Lon Chaney (James Cagney) is a charismatic young man breaking into vaudeville as a juggler and mime. He falls in love with his new assistant, Cleva (Dorothy Malone), but when he reveals that he grew up as the son of two deaf-mute parents, she reacts with horror and disgust. The psychologically unbalanced Cleva leaves Chaney shortly after their son is born, but when he moves to Hollywood, remarries and becomes a movie star, she returns in an attempt to get back into her son's life.

Director: Joseph Pevney
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Production Co: Universal/Universal Int
Genre: Biography
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Aug 13, 1957, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Oct 8, 2020
Runtime: 2h 2m