TeenzTen An action-packed slog

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

alexanderdavies-99382 Lon Chaney certainly wasn't one for making conventional movies - as his frequent director Tod Browning was the same in his work."The Unholy Three" is one such film. The plot and the characters strongly resemble the bizarre and slightly horrific. Retrospectively, I can understand how Lon Chaney lay the blueprint for what would become the first cycle of the horror film genre in Hollywood.This version is far more effective than the talkie remake. Tod Browning's direction is very good as he sets the tone of the film from the beginning.As the leader of the gang, Lon Chaney is terrific but he is brilliantly supported by Harry Earles and Victor MacLagen. Harry Earles makes for a chilling psychopath in spite of his short statue.Any fan of Lon Chaney will enjoy this classic.

jacobs-greenwood Co-produced and directed by Tod Browning, this above average silent crime drama was later remade as a sound picture with two members of the original cast, Lon Chaney and Harry Earles. Based on the novel by Tod Robbins, with scenario by Waldemar Young, Chaney plays Professor Echo, a ventriloquist, who teams with dwarf Earles, dubbed Tweedledee, and strongman Victor McLaglen, who's called Hercules, to scam unawares customers into buying parrots from their pet shop.Initially, all three were in a sideshow during which Echo used Rosie O'Grady (Mae Busch) to pickpocket its customers. After a police raid, Echo convinces Tweedledee and Hercules to join him, forming "The Unholy Three", who along with O'Grady and an innocent, unsuspecting employee Hector MacDonald (Matt Moore) set up shop.Echo uses his gift to make the parrots appear to talk to him, dressed as an old woman and pretending to be O'Grady's 'Granny', in order to fool their customers into paying high prices for the otherwise ordinary birds. Echo is therefore in charge of the trio though Tweedledee, who pretends to be an infant around others, later connives with the dimwitted Hercules to exclude Echo from a jewelry robbery on Christmas Eve, during which they kill Mr. Arlington (Charles Wellesley, uncredited), who'd been an unsatisfied parrot customer.The three then decide to pin the murder on their ignorant employee MacDonald, with whom Rosie had fallen in love, much to the dismay of Echo who'd wanted her for himself. However, the trio's mistrust of one another and a personal plea from Rosie, who'd been taken against her will to their mountain hideout, to Echo eventually unravels things. A pet shop gorilla figures in the outcome. The film effectively ends with MacDonald's trial, during which Echo uses his gift to satisfy an agreement with Rosie.Matthew Betz, who plays the detective, Edward Connelly, who plays the judge, William Humphrey, who plays MacDonald's defense attorney, and E. Alyn Warren, who plays the prosecuting attorney, also appear.

LCShackley How strange it was to see Tod Browning's name in the opening credits, and then to have the movie start in the freak show of a circus, where all the main characters work. And freakiest of all was to see little Harry Earles, the luckless sap from FREAKS, playing a wicked baby impersonator! I wonder whether Browning already had his creepy 1932 feature in mind in 1925, or whether working on this film started the ball rolling.It's hard to think that anyone could have thought this plot plausible, but the relationships between the characters are handled well. The friction between them, and their constant conniving, is just as real as in many more elaborate talkie crime pictures. The use of ventriloquism as a plot device is strained to the max, but it's still fun watching Lon Chaney in a dress.The music score which was dubbed onto THE UNHOLY THREE in the TCM version was a hodge-podge of various eras and instrumental combinations. It became so distracting that I ended up watching the film in complete silence. But that's just me. Some nice camera and lighting work (the use of shadows, particularly) added a touch of class. And a final question: does anybody besides me think that the judge in the courtroom scene looks like Bill Nighy?

patrick.callaghan "The Unholy Three" has the thinnest plot imaginable. Professor Echo's plan, which he claims will make them a million, revolves around selling parrots to rich people. Prof. Echo, a ventriloquist, throws his voice to make the purchasers believe the parrots are great talkers. When they complain that their birds are not talking any more he visits them at their homes with a baby in a pram ("Tweedledum" the midget) and checks what they have to steal. Luckily rich people seem to spend their time openly admiring their gems with the safe open.And that's the plot in a nutshell. A very dull film indeed. Not even Tod Browning's direction can get around the numbing limitations of the plot.