everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

"The Unholy Three" is not a Lon Chaney horror film but rather an interesting crime caper drama.We meet the main characters in a seedy side show. First is Echo the ventriloquist (Chaney) his "girl friend" and pick pocket artist Rosie O'Grady (Mae Busch), strongman Hercules (Victor McLaglan) and baby faced midget Tweedledee (Harry Earles). Echo, fed up with the carnival life devises a plan whereby he, Hercules and Tweedldee would become the Unholy Three and commit a series of robberies. Echo disguises himself as "Grandma" Moses and the midget as her baby grand daughter. They hire wimpish Hector McDonald (Matt Moore) who is unaware of the goings on, to run the store.The cover if you will, is a bird shop (really?) where Echo uses his ventriloquist skills to convince rich customers to buy what they think is a talking parrot. Later when the customer discovers that the bird cannot talk they call "Grandma" Moses who goes to their home to case the place for a robbery. Hector develops a crush on Rosie and she at first doesn't reciprocate. The robberies are going well for the group until one night when Rosie shows interest in Hector. The three are about to embark on another robbery when Echo showing his jealousy, stays behind to spoil Rosie's date. Hercules and the midget proceed on their own but in their haste murder the victim Mr. Arlington (Charles Wellesley). Echo is furious but goes along with the plan of pinning the crime on the hapless Hector.The trio and Rosie flee to an isolated cabin as Hector is arrested for the murder. Then it gets interesting.Lon Chaney as usual disappears into his character(s). His depiction of the aged grandmother is another of his great characterizations. He literally becomes a convincing old lady. His Echo displays a wide range of emotions through Chaney's remarkable pantomime talents: dominance, fear, hate, kindness, cruelty etc. The romance between Rosie and Hector is a little hard to believe given her background. Hector does mention at one point though, that he too has a past but does not elaborate.Given that Echo saves Hector, one has to wonder why he was not charged with the robberies but seems to get off scott free. Does Chaney get the girl in the end, what do you think?Remade as a sound feature in 1930.

Underrated Tod Browning production has Lon Chaney bringing his arsenal of facial expressions, putting his expressive talents on display yet again. When you often see the team of director Browning and actor Lon Chaney, fireworks happen on screen. Yes, the low budget for 1925 shows. There's a scene between Chaney's ventriloquist Echo and his pickpocket partner Rosie(Mae Busch, who I thought was quite good)supposedly on the outside discussing the fate of a someone set-up for which you can tell is a painted background on a sound stage, or the scenes with the supposed giant primate..but, if one gets into the dastardly story-line then this might drive them away from such trivial matters. Chaney stars as a ventriloquist working the carny scene whose "associate" Rosie picks the pockets of the wealthy supplying them with the extra refinements their true professions do not provide. He concocts a scheme, gaining the partnership of a strongman(John Ford veteran Victor McLaglen)and his pint-sized dwarf friend Tweedledee(Harry Earles, most know him from Browning's controversial film "Freaks"), to thieve the rich by pretending to be a family operating a store. They hire trustworthy, naive "boob" Hector(Matt Moore)as a fall guy if their schemes to swindle run across possible trouble. Rosie is to work Hector over, pretending to fancy him. Things get complicated as Rosie falls in love with her mark as a jealous Echo tries to nip their growing bond in the bud. Meanwhile, Hercules, the strongman, and Tweedledee decide to rob a client who recently purchased a parrot..in the film Echo is so good at voices, he can persuade possible shoppers to purchase parrots he provided the dialogue to..under the disguise of an elderly lady, Mrs. Granny O'Grady as Tweedledee pretends to be a little child..and kill the millionaire putting a damper on the future plans of The Unholy Three. The unholy union was anything but a solid foundation to begin with, but is certainly fractured when Hector is set up by the group for stealing jewels from the dead millionaire, framed for his murder, as Rosie threatens to expose them.There's just something marvelous about seeing Chaney disguised as a Granny and Earles smoking a fat cigar dressed in a child's clothes. There's a great scene where a detective is asking "Mrs. O'Grady" some questions as Tweedledee places the stolen jewels inside an elephant toy..you know exactly what the detective will eyeball when he sees it on the floor with Chaney's Echo on the verge of having a breakdown. The trial at the end is a bit far-fetched(particularly when Echo tries to put words in Hector's mouth while he's on the witness stand!

I had an afternoon free so I decided to watch the two versions of this Lon Chaney classic back to back, beginning with this one -- Tod Browning's silent original. It's the story of a crooked carnival ventriloquist (Lon Chaney) who teams up with the midget (Harry Earles) and strong man (Victor McLaglen ) for a series of robberies. Chaney dresses as an old woman and Earles plays a baby to perfect their scheme. In many ways this was a precursor to the popular Little Rascals/Our Gang short subject FREE EATS, where a couple of gangsters act as parents to a couple of little people dressed as infants, mistakenly referred to as "fidgets".Whether it's the silent version or sound remake, I thought this was a wildly entertaining story either way, though it's difficult to fairly judge one film or the other when they're viewed together so closely like this. There are pros and cons to both movies for me. The strength of Browning's silent version was that in many ways it felt much more stylish and better crafted, possibly with better production values... but I found I preferred Lila Lee as Rosie O'Grady (from the sound version) to the silent actress here, Mae Busch. The 1925 original perhaps feels a little too long, which is the only thing which kept it from being perfect for me. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if most fans prefer the silent film simply because it was directed by Tod Browning. My advice is to see them both! ***1/2 out of ****

This is a bizarre little film and it's no wonder, as it was directed by Tod Browning and starred Lon Chaney, Sr.--a potent combination that led to many other strange and scary films. Chaney plays a ventriloquist who leads a gang of thieves. The others are a midget and a strong man (though Victor McLaglen doesn't look quite muscular enough for the role). The three leave the traveling sideshow they work for and use disguises to set up robberies. In a VERY interesting bit of casting, Chaney is dressed up as an old lady during most of the film! This is highly reminiscent of the excellent later MGM film THE DEVIL DOLL--where Lionel Barrymore does the same to avoid suspicion. Also, the midget is so small and young-looking, that he poses as Chaney's grandson--a baby! Believe it or not, they actually look pretty convincing in these roles.Later in the film, two of the three thieves stage a robbery AND kill the rich guy whose safe they robbed--and leaving his young daughter badly injured. When the police start investigating, they decide to divert suspicion by planting the stolen necklace on a poor sap! And, while Chaney was NOT one of these robbers or the murderer, he reluctantly agrees to help his girlfriend, Mae Busch, exonerate the man accused since she has fallen for the accused man. Now Chaney's plan to help the accused is really pretty hair-brained and was a low-point in the film. He uses his ventriloquism in a lame attempt to help out, but no one is particularly impressed (no surprise there). So, he finally admits what he knows and admits that he knows who committed the crime. Now, oddly and completely out of the blue, Chaney's pet gorilla(!) escapes at this same time and kills the other two crooks. Considering they deserved to die for their crimes, this seemed awfully convenient. And, despite a history of crime, the court agrees to just forgive Chaney and everyone is set for a happy, if not exactly believable, ending.While the film has many excellent scenes, some interesting plot elements and some great cross-dressing scenes, the film has a lot of hokey holes--not enough to ruin the film, but enough to lessen its impact.FYI--Originally, the film also featured a horrible scene where the murder victim's child was also murdered by the midget. It was apparently VERY disturbing, so the scene was removed and the title cards indicate she was only injured.