Editing Tod Browning (section)

=== ''Miracles for Sale'' (1939) ===
''[[Miracles for Sale]]'' (1939) was the last of Browning's 46 feature films since he began directing in 1917.<ref name="Rosenthal, 1975 p. 8" /><ref>Eaker, 2016: "Tod Browning's final film, Miracles For Sale (1939)..."</ref>
Browning's career had been in abeyance for two years after completing ''[[The Devil-Doll]]'' in 1936.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "After ''The Devil Dolls'', Browning sat dormant for two years until he was able to direct ''Miracles for Sale'' (1939)..."</ref>

In 1939, he was tasked with adapting [[Clayton Rawson]]'s [[locked-room mystery]], ''[[Death from a Top Hat]]'' (1938).

[[Robert Young (actor)|Robert Young]] appears as "The Amazing Morgan", a conjurer and "purveyor of magic show equipment." [[Florence Rice]] plays the ingenue, Judy Barkley. In this, his cinematic "[[swan song]]", Browning "revisits obsessive, familiar themes of fake spiritualism, magic acts [and] transformation through disguises..."<ref>Eaker, 2016: <br />Rosenthal, 1975 p. 49: "Browning's swan song...is a fairly routine mystery against a background of the occult."</ref> and, as with virtually all of Browning's explorations of the arts of illusion and the "realms of theatrical magic", his denoumae provides "an impirical solution" to the mystery murder.<ref>Solomon, 2006 p. 51: Miracles for Sale, 1939, a murder mystery set in the realm of theatrical magic..."<br />Sobchack, 2006 p. 31: "Browning's last film, Miracles for Sale, is a mystery melodrama" that is immersed in sideshow illusionism but "the murder has an empirical solution."</ref>

''Miracles for Sale'' opens with a startling sequence that includes a graphic illusion depicting a "below-the-waist mutilation." Film critic Stuart Rosenthal writes:

{{blockquote|"On the sideline of a battlefield, an [[Orient]]al military officer chides a beautiful female spy for having dispatched intelligence that has led to the bombing of a schoolhouse. He orders her placed in a child's coffin ('You understand why we only have small coffins available' he sneers) with her head and feet protruding from either end, and tells his men to machine-gun the casket in half. After the grisly order has been carried out, to the [movie] viewer's amazement, it is revealed that the execution is merely a variation on the traditional 'sawing-a-woman-in-half' stunt. The illusion is being offered for sale by 'The Amazing Morgan' [Robert Young], a purveyor of magician's paraphernalia…"<ref>Eaker, 2016:  Miracles for Sale...featured yet another Browning depiction of below-the-waist mutilation." And: "''Miracles For Sale'' begins with a typical Browning scenario: mutilation." And: ""Browning...retains thematic continuity up to this, his last work."<br />Rosenthal, 1975 p. 49-50: See here for entire quote.</ref>}}

Despite this "inspired jolt" at the film's outset, ''Miracles for Sale'' is the most "studio bound" of Browning's sound oeuvre, and according to film critic Stuart Rosenhal "the only Browning production that really looks like an MGM studio job..."<ref>Eaker, 2016: "...the most studio bound of Browning's films…"<br />Rosenthal, 1975 p. 49</ref>

''Miracles for Sale'' lost money at the box-office, returning only $39,000 to MGM on a $297,000 investment. Critical evaluation was generally positive.<ref>Kalat, 2013 TCM: "Released on August 10, 1939, Miracles for Sale, which had been budgeted at $297,000, ended up losing $39,000 at the box office. The film did receive decent reviews from publications like [[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] [and] [[The New York Times]]…"<br />Eaker, 2016: "Tod Browning was unceremoniously (and inevitably) fired after this film, even though Miracles for Sale did fairly well at the box office and with critics."</ref>

By the early 1940s, Browning's macabre sensibilities were no longer welcome in a Hollywood that was striving for "glamour and prestige."<ref>Harvey, 2009: Browning's "gruesome sensibility grew increasingly out of place amid MGM's reach for glamour and prestige. By the end of 1941, his status at the studio was so reduced that he preferred retirement."</ref> Browning was summarily terminated at MGM by producer [[Carey Wilson (writer)|Carey Wilson]] after the release of Miracles for Sale and was, by the director's own account "[[Blacklisting|blackballed]]" from Hollywood as a filmmaker.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "Browning's career came to a whimpering close in 1939." And: "He was unceremoniously fired by MGM producer [[Carey Wilson (writer)|Carey Wilson]], whose early career Browning had greatly assisted."<br />Towlson, 2012: "After Miracles for Sale (1942), he never made another film and felt himself 'blackballed' by Hollywood."</ref> Stephanie Diekmann and Ekkehard Knörer offer this assessment of Browning's final cinematic effort:

{{blockquote| "Browning's post-''Freaks'' films were themselves close to parodies of what had made him one of the great directors of the 1920s. The one exception is his marvelous [[swan song]], Miracles for Sale, which in the farcical form of [[screwball comedy]] conjures up a world of traps and sleights-of-hand, of crookery and trickery — in short, the world of Tod Browning's theatre, one last time. His is a career that ended neither with a bang nor a whisper, but a performance that makes fun of an audience that believes what it sees."<ref>Diekmann and Knörer, 2006 p. 76</ref>}}

Film historian Alfred Eaker adds that "the entire structure of ''Miracles for Sale'' is an illusion itself, making it a sublime curtain call for the director..."<ref name=":4" />

Browning occasionally offered screenplays to MGM, but eventually disengaged entirely from the film industry and in 1942 retired to his home in [[Malibu, California]].<ref>Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 11: "After his final film ''Miracles for Sale'' (1939)...[he did] some occasional scenario writing for MGM. In 1942, Browning retired to Malibu, California."</ref>