Dark Carnival: The Films of Tod Browning
A former carnival barker and roustabout, Tod Browning came to Hollywood in the early 1910s. After 25 forgettable films, he hit in 1920 with "Outside the Law", his first teaming with Lon Chaney. For the rest of the 20s, Browning was a major director at MGM and Universal. He made the transition to sound, and made his most famous film, "Dracula", in 1931. When MGM approached him to make a horror film for them, he went back to his Carney roots and made "Freaks", using real sideshow freaks in his cast. The reaction to the film was so extreme that his career never recovered, and by 1939 he was no longer making movies. Still, his decade long run with Chaney, John Gilbert, and others created some of the most striking ( and disturbing) films of the period. One film, London after Midnight, is considered lost; in 2002 a reconstruction was made using some fragmentary clips and production stills, which accounts for the last film on the list.
avg. score: 3 of 30 (10%)
required scores: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6
