Ten Tod Browning Films Airing on Turner Classics January 25th

Attention classic movie freaks – Set your DVR for this Monday!!!!

Tod Browning (1880-1962) was a pioneering director who helped establish the horror film genre. Born in Louisville Kentucky, Browning ran away to join the circus at an early age which influenced his later career in Hollywood and echoes of those years can be found in many of his films. Though best known as the director of the first sound version of DRACULA starring Bela Lugosi in 1931, Browning made his mark on cinema in the silent era with his extraordinary 10-film collaboration with actor Lon Chaney, the ‘Man of a Thousand Faces’. Despite the success of DRACULA, and the boost it gave his career, Browning’s chief interest continued to lie not in films dealing with the supernatural but in films that dealt with the grotesque and strange, earning him the reputation as “the Edgar Allan Poe of the cinema”. Browning’s bizarre circus drama FREAKS (1932) was one of the biggest box-office disasters of the early thirties and his career never recovered from the loathing audiences and critics had for it. A complicated, troubled, and fiercely private man, Browning was a visionary director whose films deserve reassessment.

Now, just two months after I hosted a tribute to Tod Browning as part of last year’s St. Louis International Film Festival, Turner Classic Movies is running ten of his films, several of which star Lon Chaney. This will happen on Monday, January 25th

Here’s the line-up (Central Time Zone):

5:15 AM

Unholy Three (1925) A sideshow ventriloquist, midget, and strongman form a conspiracy known as “The Unholy Three” and commit a series of robberies.

6:45 AM

The Blackbird (1926) Two thieves, the Blackbird and West End Bertie, fall in love with the same girl, a French nightclub performer named Fifi. Each man tries to outdo the other to win her heart. Lon Chaney stars.

8:15 AM

The Show (1927) Performers in a Budapest sideshow encounter love, greed, and murder. John Gilbert stars.

9:45 AM

West of Zanzibar (1928) A magician seeks vengeance upon the man who paralyzed him and the illegitimate daughter he sired with the magician’s wife. Lon Chaney and Lionel Barrymore star.

11:00 AM

The Thirteenth Chair (1929) Although his murdered friend was by all accounts a scoundrel a true “bounder” Edward Wales is determined to trap his killer by staging a seance using a famous medium. Many of the 13 seance participants had a reason and a means to kill, and one of them uses the cover of darkness to kill again. When someone close to the medium is suspected she turns detective, in the hope of uncovering the true murderer. Bela Lugosi stars.

12:15 PM

Where East Is East (1929) When an animal trapper in Indo-China finds that his daughter’s fiancé is being successfully seduced by her estranged mother, he takes appropriate action. Lon Chaney and Lupe Velez star.

1:45 PM

Freaks (1932) FREAKS is a twisted tale of betrayal and revenge. Browning had worked in a circus as a young man and FREAKS features actual sideshow professionals: a living torso, Siamese twins, a legless man, dwarves, a bearded lady, a human skeleton, and microcephalics (called “pinheads” in the film). It tells the haunting story of a midget (Harry Earles) who falls in love with a trapeze artist (Olga Baclanova) who cruelly humiliates and mocks him behind his back. The community of ‘freaks’ eventually turns on the “normal” woman and ensures that she will experience life in their midst forever FREAKS was greeted with revulsion in 1932 and was such a commercial and critical flop that it derailed Browning’s career. Just as the normal world shunned the freaks Browning knew growing up, so did his audience when he put them on-screen. Only decades later did FREAKS become recognized as a cult item and a quality film, one which can safely be said to have been far ahead of its time.

3:00 PM

Fast Workers (1933) John Gilbert Robert Armstrong  star as Gunner and Bucker, pals who work as riveters. Whenever Bucker gets the urge to marry, which is often, Gunner will hit on his girl to see if she is true or not. So far, Gunner has not failed. But one night, while Gunner is in jail, Bucker meets Mary, a tough dame with a line. He falls for her, and she falls for his dough. But Mary is already a gal pal of Gunner, and no two know about the third one. The trouble starts when the triangle is revealed too late.

4:15 PM

Mark of the Vampire (1935) When a nobleman is murdered, a professor of the occult blames vampires; but not all is what it seems. Bela Lugosi and Lionel Barrymore star.

5:30 PM

Miracles For Sale (1939) Mike Morgan creates the illusions that magicians use in their shows. While his business is Miracles for Sale, his hobby is exposing fake spiritualists. At the club, he is invited to attend the calling from the other world by Sabbatt, but Judy wants Mike to help her instead. Later that night, after spoiling an attempt on the life of Judy, and meeting Madame Rapport, Mike goes to Sabbatt’s hotel only to find the doors chained from the inside and a strange voice speaking. Busting in, he finds Sabbatt strangled. While there seems to be no way for anyone from this world to commit the murder, it is only the first murder. Mike must find the how and why before Judy becomes the third and final victim. Robert Young stars