The life of Lon Chaney, Sr. does not easily lend itself to a biopic. For one thing, a great deal is not known about his personal life, and little of what we do know is not dramatically interesting enough to make a movie. The actor was genius, perhaps the greatest of the silent era, and certainly it's greatest makeup artist, but he apparently had enough self-awareness to not believe his own publicity and buy into the movie star myths that destroyed the lives of so many other stars.
The fact that the life of a man so talented could be apparently so mundane is a problem for a biopic, so Man of a Thousand Faces feels free to add typical biopic cliches and pointless subplots. It milks the two really interesting things about the personal life of Chaney (played here by James Cagney) for all their worth. The first is the fact that his parents were deaf, which was certainly helpful in the training of a silent screen actor. The second is that his first wife, Cleva (Dorothy Malone) attempted suicide, which prompted Chaney to relocate to L.A. just as movies were beginning to be accepted as an art form.
But although this movie is about an actor, it doesn't demonstrate any real knowledge of acting. We are told repeatedly that the movie's Chaney had a sympathy for people who were "born different". Why? Because his parent's were deaf? Although growing up in an environment of visual communication must have helped him (and it would be interesting to see how), lots of people have deaf parents they are all not brilliant actors. What made Chaney so great?
The movie does not even try to answer that question and instead spends a ridiculous amount of time dealing with his parents and their deafness, and according to this film, being hearing impaired is about one step above leprosy. An early scene shows Cleva so shocked and embarrassed at being around Chaney's parents that she runs out of the room at Christmas dinner and considers aborting her baby because he/she might be deaf. Come on! Does Joseph Pevney really expect the audience to sympathize with her?
There's also all the obligatory Hollywood biopic scenes- the talent agent (Jim Backus, Mr. Howell from Gilligan's Island) suddenly comes up with a brilliant marketing campaign, hence the title of the film, Chaney stays late after midnight working on a makeup, hurting his marriage, Cleva comes back to talk to his second wife (Jane Greer), the deathbed reconciliation between father and son (which never happened, as they were never estranged).
There are other problems with the movie too. When you are casting someone as a truly great actor you have basically two plausible choices. You can cast another truly great actor (Sir John Gielgud bore a resemblance to Chaney and would have been a great choice) or you can cast a total unknown the audience is unfamiliar with. Cagney was in many way a great actor, but he was not in Chaney's league and he was nowhere near as versatile. Cagney could never loose his frantic, speed-of-lighting energy, so it's hard to accepting as someone who apparently an introvert in his personal life. It's been written that Lon Chaney, Jr. was interested in playing his dad, and that also might have been an interesting choice.
Finally, demonstrating just how great a makeup artist Chaney was, the recreations shot thirty years later are nowhere near as good Chaney's original designs. Watch the unmasking scene from The Phantom of the Opera and compare it to the version here you'll be stunned at just how good Chaney a makeup Chaney was able to do in 1925.
Making a film about a great actor is not a bad idea, but Man of a Thousand Faces was ill conceived from the beginning, and the mistakes continued right through post-production. The final film is not terrible, but it's predictable, maudlin, a few steps below mediocre, which is the kind of movie that the real Lon Chaney, Sr. would have had nothing to do with.
Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)