Editing Tod Browning (section)

=== ''The Show'' (1927) ===
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| footer =The Show (1927) publicity stills. Left: Browning, Gertrude Short, John Gilbert. Right: Gilbert, Adorée and Browning, Salome playlet}}
In 1926, while Lon Chaney was busy making ''[[Tell It to the Marines (1926 film)|Tell It to the Marines]]'' with filmmaker [[George Hill (director)|George W. Hill]], Browning directed [[The Show (1927 film)|The Show]], "one of the most bizarre productions to emerge from silent cinema." (''The Show'' anticipates his subsequent feature with Chaney, a "carnival of terror": ''[[The Unknown (1927 film)|The Unknown]]'').<ref>Eaker, 2016: "...The Show is one of the most bizarre productions to emerge from silent cinema, nearly on par with the director's ''The Unknown'' from the same year."<br />Sobchack, 2006 p. 26: "...the film contains a number of extraordinary images and scenes."<br />Wood, 2006 TCM: "Browning was apparently testing the waters for a horror film set at a circus and later the same year would unleash upon the world his fully-realized carnival of terror: The Unknown (1927), starring Lon Chaney."</ref>

Screenwriter [[Waldemar Young]] based the scenario on elements from the author Charles Tenny Jackson's ''The Day of Souls''.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "The screenplay for ''The Show'' (1927) was written by frequent Tod Browning collaborator Waldemer Young (with uncredited help from Browning)...very (italics) loosely based on Charles Tenney Jackson's novel, 'The Day of Souls.'" (italics in original)<br />Wood, 2006 TCM: "The subplots of the blind father and Cock Robin's moral redemption are virtually the only ingredients that survived from Charles Tenney Jackson's novel The Day of Souls (from which the script was officially adapted)."<br />Sobchack, 2006 pp. 34–35: "...The Show suggested by Charles Jackson's novel The Day of Souls...an avid reader of gothic literature, Browning [likely] discovered the novel [as source material]."</ref>

''The Show'' is a ''tour-de-force'' demonstration of Browning's penchant for the spectacle of carnival sideshow acts combined with the revelatory exposure of the theatrical apparatus and techniques that create these illusions. Film historian Matthew Solomon notes that "this is not specific to his films with Lon Chaney."<ref>Solomon, 2006 p. 60</ref> Indeed, ''The Show'' features two of MGM's leading actors: [[John Gilbert (actor)|John Gilbert]], as the unscrupulous [[Barker (occupation)|ballyhoo]] Cock Robin, and [[Renée Adorée]] as his tempestuous lover, Salome. Actor [[Lionel Barrymore]] plays the homicidal Greek. Romantic infidelities, the pursuit of a small fortune, a murder, attempted murders, Cock Robin's moral redeemtion and his reconciliation with Salome comprise the plot and its "saccarine" ending.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "John Gilbert plays Cock Robin, the ballyhoo man at the Palace of Illusions. A character with the name of an animal is a frequent Browning trademark." And: "Unfortunately, The Show is flawed by a saccharine finale..."<br />Wood, 2006 TCM: "Its pairing of Gilbert and Adoree was a throwback to the wildly successful [[The Big Parade]] (1925)." And: "Much of the criticism was leveled at the largely unsympathetic character of [Gilbert's] Cock Robin."<br />Rosenthal, 1975 p. 63: Synopsis in full: "A jealous quarrel [presented] against a carnival background results in several murders and attempted murders."</ref>

Browning presents a menagerie of circus sideshow novelty acts from the fictitious "Palace of Illusions", including disembodied hands delivering tickets to customers; an illusionary beheading of a biblical figure (Gilbert as [[John the Baptist]]); Neptuna ([[Betty Boyd]]) Queen of the Mermaids; the sexually untoward Zela ([[Zalla Zarana]]) Half-Lady; and Arachnida ([[Edna Tichenor]], the Human Spider perched on her web. Browning ultimately reveals "how the trick is done", explicating the mechanical devices to the film audience – not to the film's carnival patrons.<ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 25: "The Show (1927) is set in a Budapest circus and fairway show called The Palace of Illusions." And p. 29: "Besides the constantly noted physical oddities of major characters, another common element shared by these bizarre melodramas is a hint of perverse sexuality..."<br />Solomon, 2006 pp. 61, 64: images of Palace of Illusion performers. See caption for photos p. 61: "The 'true forms' for the acts are later revealed to the film audience."</ref>

{{quote box|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk | fontsize=100%|salign=center | quote= You see, now he's got the fake sword. — intertitle remark by an onscreen observer of Browning's "detailed reconstruction" of an illusionary theatrical beheading in ''The Show''. — Film historian Matthew Solomon in ''Staging Deception: Theatrical Illusionism in Browning's Films of the 1920s'' (2006)<ref>Solomon, 2006 pp. 51, 61–63: A step-by-step analysis of Browning's cinematic exposure of the trick.</ref>}}

The central dramatic event of ''The Show'' derives from another literary work, a "magic playlet" by [[Oscar Wilde]] entitled ''[[Salome (play)|Salomé]]'' (1896). Browning devises an elaborate and "carefully choreographed" sideshow reenactment of [[John the Baptist|Jokanaan]]'s biblical beheading (played by Gilbert), with Adorée as Salomé presiding over the lurid decapitation, symbolic of sadomasochism and castration.<ref>Solomon, 2006 pp. 63–64: See here for a concise analysis of the sequence.<br />Sobchack, 2006 p. 29: "...The Show focuses on the Salome/John the Baptist 'illusion' [a faux beheading] that speaks sadomasochism and symbolic castration."<br />Eaker, 2016: "In The Show (1927), the sadomasochistic drama of Salome is reenacted and almost played out in the actors' lives..."</ref>

''The Show'' received generally good reviews, but approval was muted due to Gilbert's unsavory character, Cock Robin. Browning was now poised to make his masterwork of the silent era, ''The Unknown'' (1927).<ref>Sobchack, 2006 pp. 25–26: "... the negative [[New York Times]] review (focused on John Gilbert's performance)..."</ref><ref>Wood, 2006 TCM: "Much of the criticism was leveled at the largely unsympathetic character of Cock Robin. Variety predicted The Show "undoubtedly will hurt [John Gilbert's] general popularity with the women..."</ref><ref>Eaker, 2016: "The Unknown (1927) is one of the final masterpieces of the silent film era...the one film in which the artists' obsessions perfectly crystallized."</ref>