Editing Tod Browning (section)

=== ''The Blackbird'' (1926) ===
[[File:The Blackbird (1926 film). M-G-M studios. Tod Browning, director. Publicity still. L to R, Lon Chaney, Doris Lloyd.jpg<!-- Do NOT change the spelling of the image file! -->|thumb|''The Blackbird'' (1928) publicity still. L to R, Lon Chaney as Dan Tate, Doris Lloyd as his wife Limehouse Polly.]]

{{quote box|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk | fontsize=100%|salign=center | quote=Browning helps to keep the development of ''The Blackbird'' taut by employing Chaney's face as an index of the rapidly oscillating mood of the title character. Chaney is the key person who will determine the fates of West End Bertie and Fifi. The plasticity of his facial expressions belies to the audience the spirit of cooperation he offers the young couple...the internal explosiveness monitored in his face is a constant reminder of the danger represented by his presence. — Biographer Stuart Rosenthal in ''Tod Browning: The Hollywood Professionals, Volume 4'' (1975)<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 22</ref>}}

Browning and Chaney were reunited in their next feature film, ''[[The Blackbird]]'' (1926), one of the most "visually arresting" of their collaborations.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "The Blackbird (1926) is a typically deranged underworld melodrama from the Tod Browning/Lon Chaney canon, and one of the most visually arresting of Browning's films."</ref>

Browning introduces [[Limehouse]] district gangster Dan Tate (Chaney), alias "The Blackbird", who creates an alter identity, the physically deformed christian missionary "The Bishop." Tate's purported "twin" brother is a persona he uses to periodically evade suspicion by the police under "a phony mantle of christian goodness"—an image utterly at odds with the persona of The Blackbird.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "The scenes of Chaney frantically changing identities with constables from Scotland Yard waiting below are deliriously incredible."</ref> According to film historian Stuart Rosenthal, "Tate's masquerade as the Bishop succeeds primarily because the Bishop's face so believably reflects a profound spiritual suffering that is absolutely foreign to the title character [The Blackbird]."<ref>Miller, 2008 TCM: "...set in London's Limehouse district, a lower-class waterfront area named for the large warehouses where the British Navy stored the citrus fruit that protected its sailors from scurvy."<br />Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 39–40: "The Bishop's forlorn expression reveals a propensity for passive suffering...since this inclination toward self-subjugation is incompatible with the assertive traits that Browning prizes, Dan Tate is split into two. The phoney suffering and soft manner go into one package, the Bishop, while the scornful aggressiveness and rough-hewn features are combined in the Blackbird."</ref>

Tate's competitor in crime, the "gentleman-thief" Bertram "West End Bertie" Glade ([[Owen Moore]], becomes romantically involved with a Limehouse cabaret singer, Mademoiselle Fifi Lorraine ([[Renée Adorée]]). The jealous Tate attempts to frame Bertie for the murder of a policeman, but is mortally injured in an accident while in the guise of The Bishop. Tate's wife, Polly ([[Doris Lloyd]] discovers her husband's dual identity, and honors him by concealing his role as "The Blackbird." The reformed Bertie and his lover Fifi are united in matrimony.<ref>Miller, 2008 TCM: "The name West End Bertie suggests that the character is a gentleman thief, coming from the more fashionable side of London."<br />Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 22–23: See here for Browning and Chaney handling of the Dan Tate character.<br />Sobchack, 2006 p. 24: "The Blackbird (1926) is also a crook melodrama in which Chaney plays two roles" as the character Dan Tate...posing as both a rescue mission worker named "The Bishop" and "The Blackbird" a phony twin brother Tate creates to conceal his criminal activities. And p. 57: "...christian goodness..."<br />Solomon, 2006 pp. 56–57: "In The Blackbird, the criminal Dan Tate (Chaney), The Blackbird, periodically assumes the character of The Bishop, who hobbles about on a crutch, to elude the police."</ref>

Chaney's adroit "quick-change" transformations from the Blackbird into The Bishop—intrinsic to the methods of "show culture"—are "explicitly revealed" to the movie audience, such that Browning invites them to share in the deception.<ref>Solomon, 2006 p. 56: "Browning films like The Blackbird place the act of masquerade onscreen, explicitly revealing the visual deception to the viewer." And pp. 56–57: "While other characters in the film, or course, never see the two purported [twin] brothers together, the viewer is given immediate access to the acts of quick-change" in which Tate (Chaney) transforms himself from The Blackbird to The Bishop.</ref>

Browning introduces a number of [[slapstick]] elements into ''The Blackbird''. Doris Lloyd, portrays Tate's ex-wife Limehouse Polly, demonstrating her comic acumen in scenes as a flower girl,<ref>Miller, 2008: "Doris Lloyd received solid notices as the Blackbird's ex-wife, who still loves him. She would build a long career, specializing in playing British maids and cleaning ladies into her seventies."</ref> and Browning's Limehouse drunkards are "archetypical of burlesque cinema." Film historian Boris Henry points out that "it would not be surprising if the fights that Lon Chaney as Dan Tate mimes between his two characters (The Blackbird and The Bishop) were inspired by actor-director [[Max Linder]]'s performance in [[Be My Wife]], 1921."<ref>Henry, Boris, 2006 p. 41: Polly Moran's "slapstick background" is displayed in her role as a flower girl in The Blackbird. And p. 42: "The Blackbird...inspired by Max Linder's performance in [[Be My Wife]], 1921." And p. 43: Some scenes in The Blackbird "are archetypical of burlesque cinema...a drunk totters unsteadily, notices suddenly he is going the wrong way and turns on his heels."<br />Rosenthal, 1975 p. 63: Filmography, brief sketch of film.<br />Solomon, 2006 p. 56: "Browning films like The Blackbird place the act of masquerade onscreen, explicitly revealing the visual deception to the viewer." And pp. 56–57: "While other characters in the film, or course, never see the two purported ["twin"] brothers together, the viewer is given immediate access to the acts of quick-change" in which Tate transforms himself from The Blackbird to The Bishop.<br />Miller, 2008 TCM: "With the revelation that the twin brothers are actually the same man, with the physically twisted mission worker as a front for the criminal, Chaney treated his fans to several scenes in which he transforms from one to the other."</ref>

Film historian Stuart Rosenthal identifies Browning's characterization of Dan Tate/the Blackbird as a species of vermin lacking in nobility, a parasitic scavenger that feeds on carrion and is unworthy of sympathy.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 12: "...the protagonist [Dan Tate] of The Blackbird must ultimately fail in his jealous vendetta against Bertie...as his name implies [Tate/Blackbird] falls into the category of scavengers and parasites...his motives are corrupt and, in the end, he does not succeed."</ref> In death, according to film critic Nicole Brenez, The Blackbird "is deprived of [himself]...death, then, is no longer a beautiful vanishing, but a terrible spiriting away."<ref>Brenez, 2006 p. 96: "...to die as one's double means being deprived of oneself even in death: death, then, is no longer a beautiful vanishing, but a terrible spiriting away."</ref>

Though admired by critics for Chaney's performance, the film was only modestly successful at the box office.<ref>Miller, 2008: "The film's $36,000 profit was the lowest for any of Chaney's MGM films. Although the film received strong reviews...MGM picked up Chaney's contract, raising his salary to $3,000 a week and gave Browning a new contract doubling his salary to $20,000 a picture with a $5,000 bonus for each film brought in on time and on budget.</ref>