# The Unholy Three
**The Unholy Three** is a 1925 American silent crime melodrama directed by Tod Browning for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, adapted by Waldemar Young from Clarence Aaron "Tod" Robbins's 1917 novel of the same name. It stars [Lon Chaney](https://www.edgepedia.org/lon-chaney) as Professor Echo, a ventriloquist who leads a trio of sideshow performers in a burglary ring run from a pet shop, and it was the first of Browning and Chaney's film collaborations at MGM.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12951-THE-UNHOLY-THREE) • [2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-unholy-three/) MGM remade the film with sound in 1930, again starring Chaney, in what became his only talking picture and his final film before his death on 26 August 1930.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/12952)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writer | Tod Browning; scenario by Waldemar Young, from the 1917 novel by Clarence Aaron (Tod) Robbins[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12951-THE-UNHOLY-THREE) |
| Studio / release | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; released 16 August 1925; seven reels, 6,948 feet; copyright 24 June 1925 (LP21593)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12951-THE-UNHOLY-THREE) |
| Principal cast | Lon Chaney (Professor Echo/Mrs. O'Grady), Mae Busch (Rosie O'Grady), Matt Moore (Hector McDonald), Victor McLaglen (Hercules), Harry Earles (Tweedledee)[4](https://www.lonchaney.org/filmography/140.html) |
| Criminal scheme | A pet shop selling parrots that do not talk, made to "talk" by Echo's ventriloquism, serves as a front for casing and robbing customers' homes[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12951-THE-UNHOLY-THREE) |
| Browning–Chaney partnership | First of their collaborations at MGM, following two earlier films together[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-unholy-three/) |
| 1930 sound remake | Directed by Jack Conway; Chaney's only sound and dialogue film and his last picture before his death on 26 August 1930[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/12952) |
| Recognition | Named one of The New York Times 10 Best Films of 1925; voted one of the "Top Best Features" of 1926 by the 1929 Film Daily Year Book[4](https://www.lonchaney.org/filmography/140.html) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12951-THE-UNHOLY-THREE) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Three dime museum performers, Hercules the strongman, Professor Echo the ventriloquist, and Tweedledee, a dwarf, work a sideshow while Rosie O'Grady, in league with them, picks pockets in the crowd. Seeking larger profits, the three men open a pet shop stocked with parrots that will not talk. Echo, disguised as an old woman, works in the store and makes the birds seem to talk by ventriloquism. When dissatisfied customers complain, Echo calls at their homes pushing Tweedledee, disguised as a baby, in a baby carriage; the pair inspect the house while Echo silences the complaint, and the trio later returns to rob the likely targets.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12951-THE-UNHOLY-THREE)
The scheme collapses when a burglary goes wrong. Hercules and Tweedledee kill someone during a job, and Hector McDonald, an innocent man, is blamed for the crime.[5](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12951-THE-UNHOLYTHREE?cp=1&pos=4&sid=56ab6ca1-40eb-4f15-8a57-8a361d5389d7&sr=7.9683495) Rosie has fallen in love with Hector, and Echo, increasingly uncomfortable with the trio's activities, ultimately seeks to exonerate him. In the silent version's climactic courtroom scene, Echo throws his voice from the gallery so that Hector, silently moving his lips on the witness stand, appears to speak the exonerating testimony; the film ends with Echo's confession and a bittersweet parting from Rosie.[6](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-49683-8_1) • [2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-unholy-three/)
## Production
Browning convinced MGM executives that Robbins's pulp novel, about carnival performers who set up an elaborate burglary operation, was well suited to Chaney.[7](https://silentfilm.org/the-unholy-three/) Variety announced on 21 January 1925 that Browning was in production on the Chaney vehicle at the MGM Studios in [Culver City, California](https://www.edgepedia.org/culver-city-california), and the 31 January 1925 Exhibitors Trade Review reported that Irving G. Thalberg was supervising production for the studio.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12951-THE-UNHOLY-THREE) [Principal photography](https://www.edgepedia.org/principal-photography) ran from 22 December 1924 through 20 January 1925, and the film premiered in San Francisco on 30 May 1925 before its general release.[8](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/U/UnholyThree1925.html)
**The gorilla.** A 1,400-pound gorilla, captured in the [Belgian Congo](https://www.edgepedia.org/belgian-congo) a few months before, was used for several sequences, according to the 28 February 1925 Exhibitors Trade Review.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12951-THE-UNHOLY-THREE) In publicity stories Browning exaggerated the animal's ferocity; the TCM account states that the ape on screen was in reality a large but docile chimpanzee made to appear larger through miniature sets and optical effects, including one scene in which a child was costumed as Echo so the ape would loom large by comparison.[9](https://www.tcm.com/articles/59975/the-unholy-three-1925)
Reported running times differ among modern sources: Film at [Lincoln Center](https://www.edgepedia.org/lincoln-center) lists 80 minutes, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival 90 minutes, and Rotten Tomatoes and Apple TV 1 hour 9 minutes.[2](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-unholy-three/) • [7](https://silentfilm.org/the-unholy-three/) • [10](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/unholy_three)
## The Browning–Chaney partnership
The Unholy Three was the third film Browning directed starring Chaney and their first together at MGM, beginning a run in which the two made ten features together.[7](https://silentfilm.org/the-unholy-three/) The pairing joined contrasting backgrounds: Chaney, born in 1883 to a deaf mother whose father had founded the Colorado School for the Deaf, had learned from childhood to communicate without sound and built his craft on the legitimate stage; Browning had run away from his [Louisville, Kentucky](https://www.edgepedia.org/louisville-kentucky), home in 1898 at 16 to join a carnival, where he learned the tricks of a con artist as a showman.[7](https://silentfilm.org/the-unholy-three/) Their films together explored, in the festival essay's framing, the tension between [Benjamin Franklin](https://www.edgepedia.org/benjamin-franklin)'s "God helps them that help themselves" and [P. T. Barnum](https://www.edgepedia.org/p-t-barnum)'s "There's a sucker born every minute."[7](https://silentfilm.org/the-unholy-three/)
Browning's direction drew contemporary praise for its handling of macabre material. [The New Yorker](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-new-yorker)'s 1925 review credited him with distilling "grotesque melodramatic comedy" and rising above a plot the critic found full of holes, while noting Chaney's performance as a "nice crooked old lady."[11](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1925/08/15/moving-pictures) Later commentary has highlighted the film's visual set pieces, including the shadow of the trio hatching their plans and the oft-parodied image of the infantile Tweedledee smoking a fat cigar.[9](https://www.tcm.com/articles/59975/the-unholy-three-1925)
## The 1930 sound remake
M-G-M released a sound adaptation of the Robbins novel on 12 July 1930, again starring Chaney and Harry Earles as Echo and Tweedledee, directed by Jack Conway, with Lila Lee and Elliott Nugent in the cast.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/12952) Modern sources have called the 1930 version a shot-by-shot remake of the 1925 film, although the credited writers differ: Waldemar Young wrote the silent film's screenplay, while J. C. Nugent and Elliott Nugent, who also played Hector, are the only credited writers on the talkie.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/12952) The Eastman Museum catalog describes it as a close remake in which only the climax was significantly changed, with dialogue heavy in carny slang and pre-Code innuendo.[12](https://www.eastman.org/sites/default/files/GEM-2022_NPS-catalogue-wBlindDate_web.pdf)
Chaney, then fifty-seven, made the 1930 picture his lone film with sound and dialogue, and it proved to be the last he completed before dying on 26 August 1930.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/12952) The chance for audiences to hear one of the studio's biggest stars speak was itself a reason to remake one of Chaney's biggest silents.[12](https://www.eastman.org/sites/default/files/GEM-2022_NPS-catalogue-wBlindDate_web.pdf) The press, which had long called Chaney "the man of a thousand faces," embraced a new moniker after the film: "the man of a thousand voices."[6](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-49683-8_1)
**A changed ending.** The most significant departure from the silent version comes in the final courtroom scene. Instead of ventriloquizing Hector from the audience, Echo takes the witness stand in his Mrs. O'Grady disguise; as he testifies, the vocal disguise slips lower and lower until the defense attorney tears off her wig, exposing the ruse. Unmasked, Echo confesses and is found guilty and sentenced, so that the sound version culminates in an actual ventriloquial failure where the silent version had staged a ventriloquial triumph.[6](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-49683-8_1)
## Legacy and preservation
The silent film survives: a 35mm positive print exists, and the film is in the public domain in the United States.[8](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/U/UnholyThree1925.html) The 1930 film's print was fully restored by [The Film Foundation](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-film-foundation), an organization founded in 1990 by director Martin Scorsese.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/12952) The story's influence extended beyond Browning: a scholarly study of Hitchcock's Murder! (1930) judges it highly likely that The Unholy Three was a direct influence on that film, whose British release followed weeks after Chaney's death.[13](https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/175515/1/WRAP-Exploiting-ambiguity-murder-20.pdf) Harry Earles reunited with Browning in 1932 for Freaks, based on another Robbins story, and [Victor McLaglen](https://www.edgepedia.org/victor-mclaglen) went on to a career as a character actor in [John Ford](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-ford)'s films, including The Informer (1935) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949).[9](https://www.tcm.com/articles/59975/the-unholy-three-1925)
## References
1. [The Unholy Three (1925), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12951-THE-UNHOLY-THREE)
2. [The Unholy Three, Film at Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-unholy-three/)
3. [The Unholy Three (1930), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/12952)
4. [The Unholy 3 (1925), Lon Chaney filmography](https://www.lonchaney.org/filmography/140.html)
5. [The Unholy Three (1925), AFI Catalog, full page view](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/12951-THE-UNHOLYTHREE?cp=1&pos=4&sid=56ab6ca1-40eb-4f15-8a57-8a361d5389d7&sr=7.9683495)
6. [Finding Meaning in Intermedial Gaps, Springer Nature (2020)](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-49683-8_1)
7. [The Unholy Three, essay by Richard Hildreth, San Francisco Silent Film Festival](https://silentfilm.org/the-unholy-three/)
8. [The Unholy Three (1925), Progressive Silent Film List, Silent Era](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/U/UnholyThree1925.html)
9. [The Unholy Three (1925), by Bret Wood, TCM](https://www.tcm.com/articles/59975/the-unholy-three-1925)
10. [The Unholy Three, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/unholy_three)
11. [Moving Pictures, by Theodore Shane, The New Yorker, August 15, 1925](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1925/08/15/moving-pictures)
12. [George Eastman Museum, 2022 Nitrate Picture Show catalogue](https://www.eastman.org/sites/default/files/GEM-2022_NPS-catalogue-wBlindDate_web.pdf)
13. [Exploiting Ambiguity: Murder! and the Meanings of Cross-Dressing in Interwar British Cinema, University of Warwick](https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/175515/1/WRAP-Exploiting-ambiguity-murder-20.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Early and silent cinema › Silent genre and exploitation features*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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