Editing Tod Browning (section)

== The Browning-Chaney collaborations at MGM: 1925–1929 ==

After moving to MGM in 1925 under the auspices of production manager [[Irving Thalberg]], Browning and Chaney made eight critically and commercially successful feature films, representing the zenith of both their silent film careers. Browning wrote or co-wrote the stories for six of the eight productions. Screenwriter [[Waldemar Young]], credited on nine of the MGM pictures, worked effectively with Browning.<ref>Sobchack, 2006 pp. 34–35: See here for unique collaboration as Browning's screenwriting partner.<br />Rosenthal, 1975 p. 19: "The ten films that Browning and Chaney made together [two at Universal, eight at MGM] were the most successful of either's career."</ref><ref>Robinson, 1968 p. 125: "In 1925 he was taken on by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/MGM and began a series of films with Lon Chaney that must rank among the most extraordinary pictures ever made."</ref> At MGM, Browning would reach his artistic maturity as a filmmaker.<ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 34: "Certainly, Browning's best work was for MGM...all his films for Universal were made before 1924 and his maturity as a filmmaker...some credit must go to Irving Thalberg who, a vice-president at Universal while Browning was there" brought Browning along "when he [Thalberg] left in 1925 to join the newly-formed MGM."</ref>

The first of these MGM productions established Browning as a talented filmmaker in Hollywood, and deepened Chaney's professional and personal influence on the director: ''The Unholy Three''.<ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 35: "Lon Chaney's influence on Browning seems considerable...their significant collaboration really began at MGM and with The Unholy Three (1925)."</ref><ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 19: "In these films one can sense a personal rapport between actor and director which must have been deeper than mere professional respect."</ref><ref>Eaker, 2016: "The original, silent Unholy Three (1925) catapulted Browning into star director status."</ref>

=== ''The Unholy Three'' (1925) ===
[[File:The Unholy Three (1925 film). M-G-M studios, directed by Tod Browning L to R Lon Chaney, Tod Browning.jpg<!-- Do NOT change the spelling of the image file! -->|thumb|''The Unholy Three'', publicity still. L to R: Ventriloquist dummy, Lon Chaney, Tod Browning.]]

In a circus tale by author [[Tod Robbins]]—a setting familiar to Browning—a trio of criminal ex-[[Carny|carnies]] and a [[Pickpocketing|pickpocket]] form a jewelry theft ring. Their activities lead to a murder and an attempt to frame an innocent bookkeeper. Two of the criminal quartet reveal their humanity and are redeemed; two perish through violent justice.

''[[The Unholy Three (1925 film)|The Unholy Three]]'' is an outstanding example of Browning's delight in the "bizarre" (though, here, not macabre) melodrama and "the perverse characterizations" that Browning and Chaney devised anticipated their subsequent collaborations.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "The Unholy Three is not, on the surface, as macabre as later Browning-Chaney films [but exhibits] perverse characterizations and surreal plot."<br />Barson, 2021: "...the shocking (for the time) circus tale The Unholy Three (1925), with Chaney as a transvestite ventriloquist who teams with a dwarf [sic] (Harry Earles), a strongman (Victor McLaglen), and a pickpocket (Mae Busch) to go on a crime spree that culminates in murder..."<br />Robinson, 1968 p. 125: The Unholy Three (1925), about a transvestite [[ventriloquist]], a dwarf [sic] and a [[strongman (strength athlete)|strongman]] who conduct a criminal business under cover of a pet store, was a promising (and profitable) beginning."<br />Sobchack, 2006 p. 25: "...contains [the] major elements of Browning's bizarre melodramas..."</ref>

Lon Chaney doubles as Professor Echo, a [[sideshow]] ventriloquist, and as Mrs. "Granny" O'Grady (a cross-dressing Echo), the mastermind of the gang. Granny/Echo operates a talking parrot pet shop as a front for the operation. Film critic Alfred Eaker notes that Chaney renders "the drag persona with depth of feeling. Chaney never camps it up and delivers a remarkable, multifaceted performance."<ref name=":4">Eaker, 2016</ref>

Harry Earles, a member of [[The Doll Family]] midget performers plays the violent and wicked Tweedledee who poses as Granny's infant grandchild, Little Willie. (Granny conveys the diminutive Willie in a perambulator.)<ref>Eaker, 2016: "As powerful as Chaney is in the lead role, he [is nearly] eclipsed by his dwarf [sic] co-star Earles."</ref>

[[Victor McLagen]] is cast as weak-minded Hercules, the circus strongman who constantly seeks to assert his physical primacy over his cohorts. Hercules detests Granny/Echo, but is terrified by the ventriloquist's "pet" gorilla. He doubles as Granny O'Grady's son-in-law and father to Little Willie.<ref name=":5">Rosenthal, 1975 p. 36</ref>

The pickpocket Rosie, played by [[Mae Busch]], is the object of Echo's affection, and they share a mutual admiration as fellow larcenists. She postures as the daughter to Granny/Echo and as the mother of Little Willie.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 30</ref><ref>Blyn, 2006 p. 121: Echo's "love interest, Rosie..."</ref>

The pet shop employs the diffident bookkeeper, Hector "The Boob" MacDonald ([[Matt Moore (actor)|Matt Moore]]) who is wholly ignorant of the criminal proceedings. Rosie finds this "weak, gentle, upright, hardworking" man attractive.<ref>Brenez, 2006 p. 105</ref><ref>Blyn, 2006 p. 117: "...The Boob..."</ref>

When Granny O'Malley assembles her faux-"family" in her parlor to deceive police investigators, the movie audience knows that "the grandmother is the head of a gang and a ventriloquist, the father a stupid Hercules, the mother a thief, the baby a libidinous, greedy [midget], and the pet...an enormous gorilla." Browning's portrait is a "sarcastic distortion" that subverts a cliched American wholesomeness and serves to deliver "a harsh indictment...of the bourgeois family."<ref>Brenez, 2006 pp. 104–105: Quotes here are a composite. And p. 104 for character descriptions.</ref>

Film historian Stuart Rosenthal identifies "the ability to control another being" as a central theme in ''The Unholy Three''. The deceptive scheme through which the thieves manipulate wealthy clients, demonstrates a control over "the suckers" who are stripped of their wealth, much as circus sideshow patrons are deceived: Professor Echo and his ventriloquist's dummy distract a "hopelessly naive and novelty-loving" audience as pickpocket Rosie relieves them of their wallets.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 18–19</ref><ref>Blyn, 2006 p. 121</ref> Browning ultimately turns the application of "mental control" to serve justice. When bookkeeper Hector takes the stand in court, testifying in his defense against a false charge of murder, the reformed Echo applies his willpower to silence the defendant, and uses his voice throwing power to provide the exonerating testimony. When Hector descends from the stand, he tells his attorney "That wasn't me talking. I didn't say a word." Browning employs a set of dissolves to make the ventriloquists role perfectly clear.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 14: "The ability to assume control of another being is vital to The Unholy Three. Echo the ventriloquist delivers testimony in court through the mouth of Hector....as the words pour from the witness stand, Browning repeatedly dissolves Echo onto Hector and vice versa, establishing the performer's complete responsibility for what is being said."</ref><ref>Blyn, 2006 pp. 117, 121</ref>

Film historian Robin Blyn comments on the significance of Echo's courtroom confession:

{{blockquote|Professor Echo's [moral] conversion represents one of the final judgement on the conversion of the cinema of sound attractions to a sound-based narrative cinema disciplined to the demands of realism. Echo's decision to interrupt the proceedings and confess, rather than 'throwing voices' at the judge or the jury, conveys the extent to which the realist mode had become the reigning aesthetic law. Moreover, in refusing his illusionist gift, Echo relinquishes ventriloquism as an outmoded and ineffective art...<ref>Blyn, 2006 p. 124: See here for the entire passage.</ref>}}

With ''The Unholy Three,'' Browning provided MGM with a huge box-office and critical success.<ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 34: "The film was, of course, a huge success."</ref>

=== ''The Mystic'' (1925) ===
{{quote box|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk | fontsize=100%|salign=center | quote=Although fascinated by the grotesque, the deformed and the perverse, Browning (a former magician) was a debunker of the occult and the supernatural...Indeed, Browning is more interested in tricks and illusions than the supernatural. — Film historian [[Vivian Sobchack]] in ''The Films of Tod Browning'' (2006)<ref name="Sobchack, 2006 p. 31">Sobchack, 2006 p. 31</ref>}}

While Lon Chaney was making ''[[The Tower of Lies]]'' (1925) with director [[Victor Sjöström]] Browning wrote and directed an [[Aileen Pringle]] vehicle, ''[[The Mystic]]''.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "Because of the lack of usual Browning stars, ''The Mystic'' is an interesting, lesser-known film in the director's canon. Not only is it thematically related to his other films, but it also shows the idiosyncratic continuity of his taste in actresses..."</ref><ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 24</ref> The picture has many of the elements typical of Browning oeuvre at MGM: Carnivals, Hungarian Gypsies and séances provide the exotic ''mise-en-scene'', while the melodramatic plot involves embezzlement and swindling. An American con man Michael Nash ([[Conway Tearle]]) develops a moral conscience after falling in love with Pringle's character, Zara, and is consistent with Browning's "themes of reformation and unpunished crimes." and the couple achieve a happy reckoning.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "Their relationship is reminiscent of the one between Priscilla Dean and Wheeler Oakman in Browning's Outside The Law (1920), as are the familiar Browning themes of reformation and unpunished crimes."</ref> Browning, a former sideshow performer, is quick to reveal to his movie audience the illusionist fakery that serves to extract a fortune from a gullible heiress, played by [[Gladys Hulette]].<ref>Eaker, 2016: "Of course, Zara's clairvoyant act is all illusion and Browning, as usual, lets his audience in on the trickery almost from the outset."</ref>

''[[Dollar Down]]'' (1925): Browning followed ''The Mystic'' with another "crook melodrama involving swindlers" for [[Truart Film Corporation|Truart productions]]. Based on a story by Jane Courthope and Ethyl Hill, ''Dollar Down'' stars [[Ruth Roland]] and [[Henry B. Walthall]].<ref name=":6">Sobchack, 2006 p. 32</ref><ref name=":7">Rosenthal, 1975 p. 63</ref>

Following these "more conventional" crime films, Browning and Chaney embarked on their final films of the late silent period, "the strangest collaboration between director and actor in cinema history; the premises of the films were outrageous."<ref>Robinson, 1968 p. 125: After a more conventional crime film, The Mystic (1925), Browning and Chaney embarked on a series of seven further films: The Blackbird (1926), The Road to Mandalay (1926) The Unknown (1927), London After Midnight (1927), The Big City (1928), West of Zanzibar (1928) and Where East Is East (1929). The premises of the films were outrageous."</ref><ref>Eaker, 2016: The Browning-Chaney collaborations "one of the most unsettling actor/director collaborations in the history of cinema....the strangest collaboration between director and actor in cinema history."</ref>

=== ''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>

=== ''The Road to Mandalay'' (1926) ===
[[File:The Road to Mandalay (1926 film). M-G-M studios. L to R, director Tod Browning, actor Lon Chaney.jpg<!-- Do NOT change the spelling of the image file! -->|thumb|''The Road to Mandalay'' (1926), publicity still. L to R, director Tod Browning, actor Lon Chaney.]]

Any comprehensive contemporary evaluation of Browning's ''[[The Road to Mandalay (1926 film)|The Road to Mandalay]]'' is problematic. According to Browning biographer Alfred Eaker only a small fraction of the original seven reels exist. A 16&nbsp;mm version survives in a "fragmented and disintegrated state" discovered in France in the 1980s.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "Unfortunately, The Road to Mandalay exists only in fragmented and disintegrated state, a mere 36 minutes of its original seven reels...the only known print is a 16&nbsp;mm abridged version, which was discovered in France in the 1980s."</ref>

In a story that Browning wrote with screenwriter [[Herman Mankiewicz]] ,<ref name=":7" /> ''The Road to Mandalay'' (not related to author [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s 1890 [[Mandalay (poem)|poem]]), is derived from the character "dead-eyed" Singapore Joe ([[Lon Chaney]]), a Singapore brothel operator. As Browning himself explained:

{{blockquote|The [story] writes itself after I have conceived the characters... the same for ''The Road to Mandalay''. The initial idea was that of a man so frightfully ugly that he was ashamed to reveal himself to his own daughter. In this way one can develop any story.<ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 33: "Browning indicated that his films did not begin with plot." Sobchack quotes Browning from Georges Sadoul, Dictionary of Film Makers, see footnote.</ref>}}

The picture explores one of Browning's most persistent themes: that of a parent who asserts sexual authority vicariously through their own offspring.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 25–26: "Browning regularly introduces the theme of secondary of "indirect" sexual frustration through the plot device of a parent who is unaware of the identity of his own child, or [in The Road to Mandalay] the reverse situation." And pp. 25–30: See these pages for Rosenthals examples of these themes, including The Devil-Doll (1936), The Show (1927), White Tiger (1923) and others. And: the "horrific One-Eyed-Joe in The Road to Mandalay..."</ref> As such, an [[Oedipal complex|Oedipal]] narrative is established, "a narrative that dominates Browning's work" and recognized as such by contemporary critics.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.allmovie.com/movie/v108126?cmpredirect |title=The Road to Mandalay (1926) |website=www.allmovie.com |access-date=March 13, 2021}}</ref><ref>Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 185: "...Herman J. Mankiewicz might have been familiar with [[Sigmund Freud|Freudian]] concepts...Whether through Mankiewicz influence or otherwise, the Oedipus complex as a narrative structure...dominates Browning's work."</ref>

Joe's daughter, Rosemary ([[Lois Moran]]), now a young adult, has been raised in a convent where her father left her as an infant with her uncle, Father James ([[Henry B. Walthall]]). Rosemary is ignorant of her parentage; she lives a chaste and penurious existence. Brothel keeper Joe makes furtive visits to the shop where she works as a clerk.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 25–26: "Singapore Joe is so ugly that he feels his daughter (who indeed, abhors that hideous man when he patronizes the store in which she clerks) would be ashamed if she were aware of their kinship."</ref> His attempts to anomalously befriend the girl are met with revulsion at his freakish appearance. Joe resolves to undergo plastic surgery to achieve a reproachment with his daughter and redeem his sordid history. Father James doubts his brothers' commitment to reform and to reestablish his parenthood. A conflict emerges when Joe's cohorts and rivals in crime, "The Admiral" Herrington ([[Owen Moore]]) and English Charlie Wing ([[Kamiyama Sojin]]), members of "the black spiders of the [[Seven Seas]]" appear on the scene. The Admiral encounters Rosemary at the bazaar where she works and is instantly smitten with her; his genuine resolve to abandon his criminal life wins Rosemary's devotion and a marriage is arranged. When Joe discovers these developments, the full force of his "sexual frustrations" are unleashed. Joe's attempt to thwart his daughter's efforts to escape his control ends when Rosemary stabs her father, mortally wounding him. The denouement is achieved when the dying Joe consents to her marriage and Father James performs the last rites upon his brother.<ref>Eaker, 2016: See here for a concise overview of the characters and scenario.</ref>

Film critic Alfred Eaker observes: "''The Road to Mandalay'' is depraved, pop-Freudian, silent melodrama at its ripest. Fortunately, both Browning and Chaney approach this hodgepodge of silliness in dead earnest."<ref>Eaker, 2016<br />Rosenthal, 1975 p. 26: "The struggle that results when the Admiral, one of Joe's smuggling colleagues, announced his plans to wed [Joe's daughter] has overtones of a fight to maintain the sexual integrity of the family. When this conflict is juxtaposed with efforts to hold his position as top dog in the local underworld, the infighting among the hoodlums acquires the aspect of a battle for sexual supremacy. Keeping the community of gangsters under control becomes primarily a matter of machismo."<br />Sobchack, 2006 p. 23: "One frequent minor theme in the exotic melodramas is that of sacrifice...Singapore Joe dies saving his daughter from a fate worse than death..."</ref> Religious imagery commonly appears in Browning's films, "surrounding his characters with religious paraphernalia." Browning, a [[Freemasonry|mason]], uses Christian iconography to emphasize Joe's moral alienation from Rosemary.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "Browning, a Mason, repeatedly used religious imagery and themes..."</ref> Biographer Stuart Rosenthal writes:

{{blockquote|As Singapore Joe gazes longingly at his daughter...the display of crucifixes that [surrounds her] testifies of his love for her while paradoxically acting as a barrier between them.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 57, 59: see image of crucifix in this scene.</ref>}}

Rosenthal adds ""Religion for the Browning hero is an additional spring of frustration – another defaulted promise."<ref name=":11">Rosenthal, 1975 p. 57</ref>

As in all of the Browning-Chaney collaborations, ''The Road to Mandalay'' was profitable at the box office.<ref name=":0">Sobchack, 2006 p. 36: "...it should be emphasized that most Browning films – until Freaks – made money."</ref>

=== ''London After Midnight'' (1927) ===

[[File:Tod Browning, director (R), with (L to R) actors Polly Moran, Lon Chaney, on the set of London After Midnight (1927).jpg|thumb|Director Tod Browning and actors Polly Moran and Lon Chaney (dressed as Inspector Burke), on the set of ''London After Midnight'' (1927)]]
Whereas Browning's ''The Road to Mandalay'' (1926) exists in a much deteriorated 16&nbsp;mm abridged version,<ref>Eaker, 2016: "Unfortunately, ''The Road to Mandalay'' is in such dissipated state that it makes for burdensome, strained viewing. The only known print is a 16&nbsp;mm abridged version..." And: his 1927 "mystery melodrama"</ref> ''London After Midnight'' is no longer believed to exist, the last print destroyed in an MGM vault fire in 1965.<ref>Conterio, 2018: "1927's mystery chiller, ''London after Midnight'', is one of the most famous lost movies of all. The last known print was destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire."<br />Eaker, 2016: "...the fact that ''London After Midnight'' is lost is solely the fault of MGM."<br />Eisenberg, 2020: "There is some dispute over the year of the fire, with most historians agreeing it is either 1965 or 1967."<br />Solomon, 2006 p. 51: "...the lost film ''London After Midnight'', 1927..."<br />Barson, 2021: "...London After Midnight (1927; now lost)..."<br />Sobchack, 2006 p. 31: Among Browning's "minor group of mystery melodramas..."</ref>

''London After Midnight'' is widely considered by archivists the [[Holy Grail]] and "the most sought after and discussed lost film of the silent era."<ref>Eaker, 2016: The still-photo reconstruction by TCM in 2003 "is probably the only version of the film we, and future generations, will ever see."<br />Eisenberg, 2020: "Of all the "lost" films in the history of cinema that have remained "lost," London After Midnight has passed into legend as the equivalent of the Holy Grail."</ref> A detailed photo reconstruction, based on stills from the film was assembled by [[Turner Classic Movies]]' [[Rick Schmidlin]] in 2002.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "In 2003, Rick Schmidlin of Turner Classic Movies arduously produced a photo reconstruction of London After Midnight..."</ref>

Based on Browning's own tale entitled "The Hypnotist", ''London After Midnight'' is a "drawing room murder mystery'—its macabre and [[Gothic film|Gothic]] atmosphere resembling director [[Robert Wiene]]'s 1920 ''[[The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari]]''.<ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 35: "''London After Midnight'' came from a story by Browning called ''The Hypnotist.'' And p. 36: Browning ``knew the work of Wiene on Caligari" (Sobchack quoting Edgar G. Ulmer, footnote 67).<br />Eaker, 2016: "Even from a stills-only reproduction, it is clear that Midnight is the original American Goth film. Chaney's vampire, partly inspired by [[Werner Krauss]]' Caligari..." And: "drawing room murder mystery..."</ref>

Sir Roger Balfour is found dead at the estate of his friend Sir James Hamlin. The gunshot wound to Balfour's head appears self-inflicted. The [[Scotland Yard]] inspector and forensic hypnotist in charge, "Professor" Edward C. Burke (Lon Chaney) receives no reports of foul play and the death is deemed a suicide. Five years past, and the estates current occupants are alarmed by a ghoulish, fanged figure wearing a cape and top hat stalking the hallways at night. He is accompanied by a corpse-like female companion. The pair of intruders are the disguised Inspector Burke, masquerading as a vampire (also played by Chaney), and his assistant, "Luna, the Bat Girl" ([[Edna Tichenor]]). When the terrified residents call Scotland Yard, Inspector Burke appears and reopens Balfour's case as a homicide. Burke uses his double role to stage a series of elaborate illusions and applications of hypnotism to discover the identity of the murderer among Balfour's former associates.<ref>Brenez, 2006 p. 96: "...the creation of a double...the vampire [a Scotland Yard inspector] in London After Midnight..."</ref><ref>Eisenberg, 2020: "The likeness of Chaney's "vampire," also popularly known as 'the man in the beaver hat'" And short plot synopsis.</ref><ref>Solomon, 2006 p. 51: "...it is the contrived haunted house in which a detective and his assistant, dressed in elaborate disguises, ensnare a murderer."</ref>

Browning's "preposterous" plot is the platform on which he demonstrates the methods of magic and show culture, reproducing the mystifying spectacles of "spirit theater" that purport to operate through the paranormal. Browning's cinematic illusions are conducted strictly through mechanical stage apparatus: no trick photography is employed.<ref>Solomon, 2006 p. 51: "the paranormal occurrence seen in the film are staged illusions, [not trick photography]...the deceptions, as such, are revealed to the viewers." And p. 56: "...London After Midnight presents apparently supernatural phenomena as the work of stage magic."<br />Eaker, 2016: "The film...is essentially a drawing room murder mystery, with a detective hiring actors to play vampires in order to smoke out the guilty party through sheer fright. As with most of Browning films, the plot is painstakingly preposterous..."</ref> "illusion, hypnotism and disguise" are used to mimic the conceits and pretenses of the occult, but primarily for dramatic effect and only to reveal them as tricks.<ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 31: ... the occult and the supernatural are used at one level for their dramatic value but are invariably revealed as tricks.``<br />Eisenberg, 2020: "The movie poster and lobby cards played up the film's crime story and assumed supernatural element."</ref>

{{quote box|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk | fontsize=100%|salign=center | quote= Mystery stories are tricky, for if they are too gruesome or horrible, if they exceed the average imagination by too much, the audience will laugh. ''London After Midnight'' is an example of how to get people to accept ghosts and other supernatural spirits by letting them turn out to be the machinations of a detective. Thereby the audience is not asked to believe the horrible impossible, but the horrible possible, and plausibility increased, rather than lessened, the thrill and chills. — Tod Browning commenting on his cinematic methods in an interview with Joan Dickey for ''[[Motion Picture Magazine]]'', March 1928<ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 33</ref><ref>Solomon, 2006 p. 59: Variation on quote, small source cited.</ref>}}

After the murderer is apprehended, Browning's Inspector Burke/The Man in the Beaver Hat reveals the devices and techniques he has used to extract the confession, while systematically disabusing the cast characters—and the movie audience—of any supernatural influence on the foregoing events.<ref>Solomon, 2006 p. 58: "...London After Midnight presents apparently supernatural phenomena as the work of stage magic." And: see quote from Philip J. Riley, footnote #36. And pp. 58–59: "...the paranormal occurrences seen in the film are staged by police inspector Burke (Chaney) to catch a killer."<br />Sobchack, 2006 p. 33: "...critics found the 'plausible' ending of ''London After Midnight'' disappointing in [its] final refusal to accept the supernatural premises the film had set up."</ref> Film historians Stefanie Diekmann and Ekkehard Knörer observe succinctly that "All in all, Browning's scenarios [including London After Midnight] appear as a long series of tricks, performed and explained."<ref>Diekmann, Knorer, 2006 p. 74</ref>

Lon Chaney's make-up to create the menacing "Man with the [[Beaver hat|Beaver Hat]]" is legendary. Biographer Alfred Eaker writes: "Chaney's vampire...is a make-up artist's delight, and an actor's hell. Fishing wire looped around his blackened eye sockets, a set of painfully inserted, shark-like teeth producing a hideous grin, a ludicrous wig under a top hat, and white pancake makeup achieved Chaney's kinky look. To add to the effect Chaney developed a misshapen, incongruous walk for the character."<ref name=":4" />

London After Midnight received a mixed critical response, but delivered handsomely at the box office "grossing over $1,000,000 in 1927 dollars against a budget of $151,666.14."<ref>Eisenberg, 2020: "Despite the subpar reviews, the film was a hit upon its release, grossing over $1,000,000 in 1927 dollars against a budget of $151,666.14." And: "After all, there is nothing to indicate the film, as directed by Tod Browning, was any sort of masterpiece. The reviews on London After Midnight's release were slight at best."<br />Eaker, 2016: "...London After Midnight received mixed reviews upon its release in 1927, but the majority of the reviews were positive." And: "Of all the Browning/Chaney films, Midnight reaped the biggest box office."</ref>

=== ''The Show'' (1927) ===
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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>

=== ''The Unknown'' (1927): A silent era chef d'oeuvre ===
''[[The Unknown (1927 film)|The Unknown]]'' marks the creative apogee of the Tod Browning and Lon Chaney collaborations, and is widely considered their most outstanding work of the silent era.<ref>Brogan, 2019: "When they made The Unknown in 1927, star Lon Chaney and director Tod Browning were among the biggest names in Hollywood...The Unknown is now considered by many to be the best of the Chaney/Browning collaborations...the sixth of ten collaborations between Chaney and director Tod Browning."<br />Conterio, 2018: "Generally considered to be the pair's best film together, and Browning's masterpiece..."<br />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."<br />Towlson, 2012: "... ''The Unknown'' (1927) (which many regard as Browning's best film)..."</ref> More so than any of Browning's silent pictures, he fully realizes one of his central themes in ''The Unknown'': the linkage of physical deformity with sexual frustration.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 32: "The Unknown defines a sexual basis for the frustration theme of the entire Browning-Chaney cycle and relates it directly to the star's physical deformity."</ref>

{{quote box|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk | fontsize=100%|salign=center | quote= [The story] writes itself after I have conceived the characters. ''The Unknown'' came to me after I had the idea of a man [Alonzo] without arms. I then asked myself what are the most amazing situations and actions that a man thus reduced could be involved... — Tod Browning in ''[[Motion Picture Classic]]'' interview, 1928<ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 33: "Browning indicates that his story ideas did not begin with plot..." And see here for the entire quote, with references to ''The Road to Mandalay'' (1926).</ref><ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 23: See here for another excerpt from 1928 ''Motion Picture Classic'' interview.</ref><br />
<br />I contrived to make myself look like an armless man, not simply to shock and horrify you but merely to bring to the screen a dramatic story of an armless man. — Actor Lon Chaney, on his creation of the character Alonzo in ''The Unknown''.<ref>Brogan, year: "As The Unknown proves, Chaney didn't need to rely on heavy make-up to transform himself for a role." And see here for quote.</ref>}}

Circus performer "Alonzo the armless", a Gypsy knife-thrower, appears as a double amputee, casting his knives with his feet. His deformity is an illusion (except for a [[Bifid penis|bifid]] thumb), achieved by donning a corset to bind and conceal his healthy arms. The able-bodied Alonzo, sought by the police, engages in this deception to evade detection and arrest.<ref>Soloman, 2006 p. 51: Alonzo "masquerades as an armless freak" one of Browning's portrayal of "elaborate deceptions that take place on the level of mise-en-scene."<br />Stafford, 2003 TCM: "the character of Alonzo in The Unknown is one of his most disturbing creations and the most twisted film in his ten-year association with director Tod Browning."</ref> Alonzo harbors a secret love for Nanon ([[Joan Crawford]]), his assistant in the act. Nanon's father is the abusive (perhaps sexually so) ringmaster Zanzi ([[Nick De Ruiz]]), and Nanon has developed a pathological aversion to any man's embrace. Her emotional dysfunction precludes any sexual intimacy with the highly virile strong-man, Malabar, or Alonzo, his own sexual prowess symbolized by his knife-throwing expertise and his double thumb.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 32–33: Chaney's character is "infatuated with Crawford who has a neurotic aversion to being handled by men, and naturally, an armless man is the only lover she can abide." And: Alonzo's "heightened sexual prowess [represented by] his supernumerary thumb" and his high-functioning performance without arms.</ref><ref>Eaker, 2016: "Nanon's sadistic father, Antonio Zanzi (Nick de Ruiz, hinted at being the abusive source for Nanon's hatred of a man's touch)."</ref> When Alonzo murders Zanzi during an argument, the homicide is witnessed by Nanon, who detects only the bifid thumb of her father's assailant.<ref>Eaker, 2016: "But, Alonzo must have, marry, and own Nanon, [but] she would certainly hate the hands of the double-thumbed murderer."</ref><ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 33: "...if [Alonzo] proceeds to marry Nanon, his wife will discover his secret" as the killer of her father.</ref>

[[File:The Unknown (1927 film), M-G-M studios, Screenshot. L to R, Actors Lon Chaney, John George.jpg<!-- Do NOT change the spelling of the image file! -->|thumb|''The Unknown'' (1927) Lon Chaney as Alonzo the Armless, John George as Cojo]]
Browning's theme of sexual frustration and physical mutilation ultimately manifests itself in Alonzo's act of symbolic castration; he willingly has his arms amputated by an unlicensed surgeon so as to make himself unthreatening to Nanon (and to eliminate the incriminating bifid thumb), so as to win her affection. The "nightmarish irony" of Alonzo's sacrifice is the most outrageous of Browning's plot conceits and consistent with his obsessive examination of "sexual frustration and emasculation".<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 33: "The amputations take on the significance of castration...[Nanon] aroused only by 'sexless' men."<br />Brenez, 2006 p. 100: "...''The Unknown'', the most drastic film in regard" to "the defects and excess" of dismemberment.<br />Sobchack, 2006 p. 29: The Unknown shares a "common element of [Browning's] bizarre melodramas...a hint of perverse sexuality....Estrellita (Nanon) [[Joan Crawford]] is horrified at being touched by men's hands Alonzo's [Chaney] surgery for love of her is to say the least, excessive."<br />Conterio, 2018: "The Unknown is a sublime fusion of [[Sadomasochism|sadomasochist]] imagery, male self-loathing, [[misandry]], [[castration]] symbolism and nightmarish irony."</ref><ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 11: "Alonzo [Chaney], in The Unknown is among the most rabid and instinctive of Browning's protagonists..." And pp. 32–33: "The Unknown defines a sexual basis for the frustration theme of the entire Browning-Chaney cycle and relates it to the star's inevitable physical deformity.'"<br />Brenez, 2006 p. 100: "...The Unknown, the most drastic film in regard" to "the defects and excess" of dismemberment.<br />Towlson, 2017 Part 2: ".. one of the key themes in Browning's work...is the emasculation/castration theme, in particular, one Browning explored obsessively in his films (especially those made with Lon Chaney)."</ref> When Alonzo recovers from his surgery, he returns to the circus to find that Nanon has overcome her sexual aversions and married the strongman Malabar ([[Norman Kerry]]).<ref>Conterio, 2018: "Fixated on human disfigurement and underworld figures, the films are marked by a star k, obsessive aesthetic and themes of compulsion."</ref> The primal ferocity of Alonzo's reaction to Nanon's betrayal in marrying Malabar is instinctual. Film historian Stuart Rosenthal writes:

{{blockquote|The reversion to an animalistic state in Browning's cinema functions as a way of acquiring raw power to be used as a means of sexual assertion. The incident that prompts the regression [to an animal state] and a search for vengeance is, in almost every case, sexual in nature.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 30–31</ref>}}

Alonzo's efforts at retribution lead to his own horrific death in a "[[Grand Guignol]] finale".<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 11–12: "Alonzo...chooses animals — horses – as his means for disarticulating his nemesis, Malbar, the Strongman. Alonzo's death beneath the horse's hooves, therefore, occurs in his own element." And: "...a lust for retribution...for those who have made them outcasts."</ref><ref>Eaker, 2016: The Unknown "ends with a startling, ferociously driven, symbolic finale."<br />Safford, 2003 TCM: "the Grand Guignol finale."</ref><ref>Diekmann and Knörer, 2006 p. 73: "As far as plots are concerned, the proximity of Browning's cinema to the theatre of the [[Grand Guignol]] is evident..."</ref>

''The Unknown'' is widely regarded as the most outstanding of the Browning-Chaney collaborations and a masterpiece of the late silent film era.<ref>Brogan, 2008: "When they made ''The Unknown'' in 1927, star Lon Chaney and director Tod Browning were among the biggest names in Hollywood...The Unknown is now considered by many to be the best of the Chaney/Browning collaborations...the sixth of ten collaborations between Chaney and director Tod Browning."<br />Conterio, 2018: "Generally considered to be the pair's best film together, and Browning's masterpiece..."<br />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."<br />Stafford, 2003 TCM: "the character of Alonzo in ''The Unknown'' is one of his most disturbing creations and the most twisted film in his ten-year association with director Tod Browning."</ref> Film critic Scott Brogan regards ''The Unknown'' worthy of "cult status."<ref>Brogan, 2019: "The Unknown is quite possibly the most unusual, and the most deserving of 'cult film' status" among the Browning-Chaney film collaborations.<br />Eaker, 2016: "The Unknown is...an entirely idiosyncratic work of art, which has never been remotely mimicked, nor could it be."</ref>

=== ''The Big City'' (1928) ===
A [[lost film]], ''[[The Big City (1928 film)|The Big City]]'' stars Lon Chaney, [[Marceline Day]] and [[Betty Compson]], the latter in her only appearance in an MGM film.<ref>Erickson, Allmovie: "Betty Compson, who co-starred with Chaney in his breakthrough picture [[The Miracle Man (1919 film)]], provides romantic contrast as Collins' hard-bitten gun moll."</ref> Browning wrote the story and [[Waldemar Young]] the screenplay concerning "A gangster Lon Chaney who uses a costume jewelry store as a front for his jewel theft operation. After a conflict with a rival gang, he and his girlfriend Marceline Day reform."<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 64</ref>

Film historian Vivian Sobchack remarked that "''The Big City'' concerns a nightclub robbery, again, the rivalry between two thieves. This time Chaney plays only one of them—without a twisted limb or any facial disguise.'"<ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 24: see here for See her for excerpts from contemporary NYT reviews.</ref> Critic Stuart Rosenthal commented on ''The Big City'': "...Chaney, without makeup, in a characteristic gangster role."<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 64: quote from photo caption.<br />Erickson, Allmovie: "''The Big City'' was perhaps the most "normal" of the Lon Chaney-Tod Browning collaborations. Minus makeup, Chaney plays gangster boss Chuck Collins, who despite his ruthlessness is a basically decent fellow."</ref>

''The Big City'' garnered MGM $387,000 in profits.<ref>Erickson, Allmovie: "As it turned out, Chaney's star-power enabled ''The Big City'' to score a box-office success to the tune of $387,000 in profits."</ref>

=== ''West of Zanzibar'' (1928) ===
{{quote box|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk | fontsize=100%|salign=center | quote= In ''West of Zanzibar'' Browning bares his carnival showman background not to betray himself as an aesthetic primitive, but to display his complete comprehension of the presentational mode, and of the film frame as proscenium...Browning remains neglected because most of the available English-language writing on his films focuses on the thematic singularities of his oeuvre, to the near-exclusion of any analysis of his aesthetic strategies. — Film critic Brian Darr in ''Senses of Cinema'' (July 2010)<ref>Darr, 2010: Composite quote from two paragraphs, same article.</ref>}}

[[File:West of Zanzibar (1928 film). M-G-M studios. Tod Browning director. Publicity still. Actor Lon Chaney.jpg<!-- Do NOT change the spelling of the image file! -->|thumb|''West of Zanzibar'' (1928). Publicity still. Lon Chaney as the magician Pharos.]]
[[File:West of Zanzibar (1928 film). M-G-M studios. Tod Browning, director. Publicity still. L to R, Lon Chaney, Mary Nolan.jpg<!-- Do NOT change the spelling of the image file! -->|thumb|''West of Zanzibar'' (1928). Publicity still. Lon Chaney as Dead Legs, Mary Nolan as Maizie.]]
In 1928, Browning and Lon Chaney embarked upon their penultimate collaboration, [[West of Zanzibar (1928 film)|West of Zanzibar]], based on [[Chester M. De Vonde]] play ''Kongo'' (1926).<ref>Harvey, 2019: "It surprised many back in 1928 that Chester de Vonde's drama Kongo, which ran for 135 performances on Broadway in 1926, was adapted for the screen at all. It was lurid stuff even for the wicked stage..."</ref>
scenario by [[Elliott J. Clawson]] and [[Waldemar Young]], provided Chaney with dual characterizations: the magician Pharos, and the later paraplegic Pharos who is nicknamed "Dead Legs."<ref>Barson, 2021: "Chaney played "Dead-Legs" Phroso, a paralyzed former magician who raises the daughter of his hated rival in a brothel but does not know she is actually his own, in West of Zanzibar (1928)."</ref> A variation of the "unknown parentage motif" Browning dramatizes a complex tale of "obsessive revenge" and "psychological horror."<ref>Darr, 2010: "...the most lucid arguments for his mastery of visual storytelling are his great silent films, especially those starring Lon Chaney. West of Zanzibar may be the greatest of these."<br />Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 11: "With Chaney, Browning made a number of very successful movies focusing on the themes of obsessive revenge and the sexually charged mutilation of the body..."<br />Rosenthal, 1975 p. 27: "...the unknown parentage motif..." And: p. 19. And p. 44: "West of Zanzibar reaches the peak of its psychological horror psychological horror,,,"</ref> Biographer Stuart Rosenthal made these observations on Chaney's portrayals:

{{blockquote | Dead Legs is one of the ugliest and most incorrigible of Browning's heroes...Chaney demonstrated great sensitivity to the feelings and drives of the outcasts Browning devised for him to play. Browning may well be the only filmmaker who saw Chaney as more than an attention-getting gimmick. While many of Chaney's films for other directors involve tales of retribution, only in the Browning vehicles is he endowed with substantial human complexity.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975. pp. 19, 39: Composite quote.</ref>}}
The story opens in Paris, where Pharos, a magician,<ref>Solomon, 2006 p. 51: "...the prototypical figure of the stage magician is found most clearly in ''West of Zanzibar'', 1928. It is worth knowing that before being crippled in an accident, the music-hall illusionist Phroso (Lon Chaney) resembles not so much the archetypal Mesphistophelian visage of [[Alexander Herrmann|Hermann the Great]], but rather – with his finely waxed mustache – looks much like Browning himself..."</ref> is cuckolded by his wife Anna ([[Jacqueline Gadsden]]) and her lover Crane ([[Lionel Barrymore]]). Pharos is crippled when Crane pushes him from a balcony, leaving him a paraplegic. Anna and Crane abscond to Africa. After a year, Phroso learns that Anna has returned. He finds his wife dead in a church, with an infant daughter beside her. He swears to avenge himself both on Crane and the child he assumes was sired by Crane. Unbeknownst to Phroso, the child is actually his.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 30–31: "Dead Legs' wife is stolen and (he believes) impregnated by an adulterous lover..." And p. 57: "</ref> Rosenthal singles out this scene for special mention:

{{blockquote|The religious symbolism that turns up periodically in Browning's pictures serves two antagonistic ends. When Dead Legs discovers his dead wife and her child on the pulpit of the cathedral, the solemn surrounding lend a tone of fanatical irrevocability to his vow to make "Crane and his brat pay." At the same time, Chaney's difficult and painful movements upon his belly at the front of the church have the look of a savage parody of a religious supplicant whose faith has been rendered a mockery. God's justice having failed, Dead Legs is about to embark upon his mission of righteousness.<ref name=":11" />}}

Eighteen years hence, the crippled Pharos, now dubbed Dead Legs, operates an African trading outpost. He secretly preys upon Crane's ivory operations employing local tribes and using sideshow tricks and illusions to seize the goods.<ref>Darr, 2010: "...Chaney's magician character's manipulative schemes..."</ref> After years of anticipation, Dead Legs prepares to hatch his "macabre revenge": a sinister double murder. He summons Anna's daughter Maizie ([[Mary Nolan]]) from the sordid brothel and gin mill where he has left her to be raised. He also invites Crane to visit his outpost so as to expose the identity of the culprit stealing his ivory. Dead Legs has arranged to have Crane murdered, but not before informing him that he will invoke the local Death Code, which stipulates that "a man's demise be followed by the death of his wife or child."<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 27–28</ref> Crane mockingly disabuses Dead Legs of his gross misapprehension: Maizie is Dead Legs' daughter, not his, a child that Pharos conceived with Anna in Paris. Crane is killed before Dead Legs can absorb the significance of this news.

The climax of the film involves Dead Legs' struggle to save his own offspring from the customary death sentence that his own deadly scheme has set in motion. Dead Legs ultimately suffers the consequences of his "horribly misdirected revenge ploy."<ref name=":10">Diekmann and Knörer, 2006 p. 73</ref> The redemptive element with which Browning-Chaney endows Pharos/Dead Legs fate is noted by Rosenthal: "''West of Zanzibar'' reaches the peak of its psychological horror when Chaney discovers that the girl he is using as a pawn in his revenge scheme is his own daughter. Dead Legs undertook his mission of revenge with complete confidence in the righteousness of his cause. Now he is suddenly overwhelmed by the realization of his own guilt. That Barrymore as Crane committed the original transgression in no way diminishes that guilt."<ref name="Rosenthal, 1975 p. 44">Rosenthal, 1975 p. 44</ref>

{{quote box|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk | fontsize=100%|salign=center | quote= A Browning hero would never feel a compulsion to symbolically relive a moment of humiliation. Instead of taking the philosophical route of subjugating himself to his frustration, Browning's Chaney opts for the primitive satisfaction of striking back, of converting his emotional upheaval into a source of primal strength. The viewer, empathizing with the protagonist, is shocked at the realization of his own potential for harnessing the power of his sense of outrage. This is one of the reasons why West of Zanzibar, and Chaney's other Browning films are so much more disturbing than the horror mysteries he made with other directors. — Stuart Rosenthal in ''Tod Browning: The Hollywood Professionals, Volume 4'' (1975)<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 20</ref>}}

Dead Legs' physical deformity reduces him to crawling on the ground, and thus to the "state of an animal."<ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 31: Browning's "fascination of physical deformity (generated, perhaps, by self-consciousness about his own badly scarred leg and limp, the result of a horrific automobile accident in 1915.)..."<br />Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 9–10: "The typical Browning protagonist is a man who has been reduced to a state of an animal. In almost every instance he displays a physical deformity that reflects the mental mutilation he has suffered at some element of callous society." And p. 31: "The incident that prompts the regression [to an animal state] and search for vengeance is, in almost every case, sexual in nature."</ref> Browning's camera placement accentuates his snake-like "slithering" and establishes "his animal transformation by suddenly changing the visual frame of reference to one that puts the viewer on the same level as the beast on the screen, thereby making him vulnerable to it, accomplished by tilting the camera up at floor level in front of the moving subject [used to] accentuate Chaney's [Dead Legs] slithering movements in West of Zanzibar."<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 48: See Photo caption "slithering"</ref> Film historians Stephanie Diekmann and Ekkehard Knörer state more generally "...the spectator in Browning's films can never remain a voyeur; or rather, he is never safe in his voyeuristic position..."<ref name=":9">Diekmann and Knörer, 2006 p. 74</ref>

Diekmann and Knörer also place ''West of Zanzibar'' in the within the realm of the [[Grand Guignol]] tradition:

{{blockquote | As far as plots are concerned, the proximity of Tod Browning's cinema to the theater of the Grand Guignol is evident...From the castrating mutilation of ''The Unholy Three'' (1925) to the sadistic cruelty and bestial brutality intermingled with the orientalising
''chinoiserie'' of ''Where East Is East'' (1929); from the horribly misdirected revenge ploy of ''West of Zanzibar'' (1928); to the no less horribly successful revenge plot of ''Freaks'' (1932); from the double-crossing gunplay of ''The Mystic'' to the erotically charged twists and turns of ''The Show'': on the level of plot alone, all these are close in spirit and explicitness to [[Andre de Lorde]]'s theatre of fear and horror.<ref name=":10" />}}

Despite being characterized as a "cess-pool" by the censorious [[Harrison's Reports]] motion picture trade journal, ''West of Zanzibar'' enjoyed popular success at the box office.<ref>Harvey, 2009: "...Harrison's Report, a self-described advocate for independent exhibitors, remembered Kongo and asked in a front-page editorial, "How any normal person could have thought this horrible syphilitic play could have made an entertaining picture?" The film fueled the crusades of the censorship-minded, who used it as blatant evidence of Hollywood's 'cesspools'", but "''West of Zanzibar'' did quite well at the box office..."<br />Wood, 2006 TCM: "''West of Zanzibar'' was first screened in Los Angeles in November 1928. Its official opening was December 28, 1928 at New York's Capitol Theatre (the palace where MGM premiered its major productions). The response was overwhelming. It earned an unbelievable $88,869 in its first week at the Capitol. Motion Picture News wrote, "If you do not have a S.R.O. (Standing Room Only) sign in your theater... you had better order one immediately before playing this picture."</ref>

=== ''Where East Is East'' (1929) ===
[[File:Where East is East (1929 film). M-G-M studios. Publicity still. L to R, Henry Sharp (standing), Tod Browning (center), Actors Lon Chaney and Lupe Velez.jpg|thumb|Where East is East (1929). L to R, [[Henry Sharp (cinematographer)| Henry Sharp]], Tod Browning (center), Actors Lon Chaney and Lupe Velez on couch.]]
Adapted by [[Waldemar Young]] from a story by Browning and [[Harry Sinclair Drago]], ''[[Where East Is East]]'' borrows its title from the opening and closing verses of [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s 1889 poem "[[The Ballad of East and West]]": "Oh! East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet..."<ref>Brandt, 2006 p. 129: Brandt quotes entire quatrain.</ref> Browning's appropriation of the term "Where East Is East" is both ironic and subversive with regard to his simultaneous cinematic presentation of Eurocentric cliches of the "East" (common in early 20th century advertising, literature and film), and his exposure of these memes as myths.<ref>Brandt, 2006 pp. 133–134: See Brand's section "Browning's Economy of Stereotyping"<br />Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 15: "...By situating the narrative in the borderland of Western civilization and Eastern tradition...the movie alludes to 'sexual and racial Otherness' which have been described in postcolonial theory as the pivotal features of Western colonial discourse."</ref> Film historian Stefan Brandt writes that this verse was commonly invoked by Western observers to reinforce conceptions stressing "the homogeneity and internal consistency of 'The East'" and points out that Kipling (born and raised in [[Mumbai|Bombay]], India) was "far from being one-dimensional" when his literary work "dismantles the myth of ethnic essentiality":<ref>Brandt, 2006 p. 147: See footnote #2. Brandt refers to Kipling's novel ''Kim'' (1901) as evidence for this outlook.</ref>

{{blockquote|Browning's ''Where East Is East''...playfully reenacts the symbolic dimension contained in Kipling's phrase. The expression not only emerges in the movie's title; the vision of the East that is negotiated and shown in all its absurdity here is very much akin to that associated with Kipling.<ref>Brandt, 2006 p. 147</ref>}}

Biographer Bernd Herzogenrath adds that "paradoxically, the film both essentializes the East as a universal and homogeneous entity ("Where East Is East") and deconstructs it as a Western myth consisting of nothing but colorful [male] fantasies." [brackets and parentheses in original]<ref>Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 15<br />Brandt, 2006 pp. 130, 131: "As a highly ambivalent work of art, Browning's Where East Is East is caught in a strange predicament. While replicating some dominant images of the East and thus validating the [Eurocentric] ideology connected to them, the film also seeks to subvert and destabilize the authority of these myths....''Where East Is East'' is marked by a complicated strategy of reinvention and deconstruction of ethnic stereotypes [in which] the binary logic of whiteness is symbolically suspended." Composite quote.</ref>

The last of Browning-Chaney collaborations with an "outrageous premise"<ref>Robinson, 1968 p. 125: "...Where East Is East (1929)...The premises of the films were outrageous."<br />Eaker, 2016: Where East Is East does not subscribe to any sort of orthodox realism..."<br /> Diekmann and Knörer, 2006 p. 73: "...the sadistic cruelty and bestial brutality intermingled with the orientalizing ''chinoiserie'' of Where East Is East (1929)..."</ref> and their final silent era film, ''Where East Is East'' was marketed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer "as a colonial drama in the mold of British imperialist fiction."<ref>Eaker, 2016: "Where East Is East (1929) was the last of the Tod Browning/Lon Chaney collaborations, it was the last of Browning's silent films, and it contained many themes from their previous efforts together."<br />Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 11: "...their final collaboration Where East Is East, 1929..." And p. 15 "...last co-production of Tod Browning with Lon Chaney..."<br />Brandt, 2006 p. 130</ref>

''Where East Is East'', set in the "picturesque [[French Indo-China]] of the 1920s"<ref>Brandt, 2006 pp. 129–130: Brief synopsis of film.</ref> concerns the efforts of [[Big-game hunting|big game]] trapper "Tiger" Haynes (Chaney) intervention to stop his beloved half-Chinese daughter Toyo ([[Lupe Velez]]) from marrying Bobby "white boy" Bailey, a Western suitor and son of a circus owner. He relents when Bobby rescues Toyo from an escaped tiger. The Asian seductress, Madame de Sylva ([[Estelle Taylor]]), Tiger's former wife and mother to Toyo—who abandoned her infant to be raised by Tiger—returns to lure Bobby from Toyo and ruin the couple's plans for conjugal bliss.<ref>Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 15: "...the film's dilemma is epitomized by the figure of Bobby Bailey (Floyd Hughes), the 'white boy' who finds himself torn between his fiance (accent) Toyo Haynes (Lupe Velez) and her mother Madame de Sylva (Estelle Taylor), an oriental beauty whose scheming nature threatens to tear the whole family apart."</ref><ref>Eaker, 2016: "Tiger and Bobby run into Tiger's ex-wife and Toya's mother, Mme. de Sylva (Estelle Taylor, the real-life one time wife of Jack Dempsey)."</ref> Tiger takes drastic action, unleashing a gorilla which dispatches Madame de Sylva but mortally wounds Tiger. He lives long enough witness the marriage of Toyo and Bobby.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 28: "Tiger, in Where East Is East, has his entire life tied up with his daughter, Toyo, and is very ill at ease over her proposed marriage to Bobby Bailey until Bobby demonstrates his manliness in fending off an escaped tiger." And p. 64: Rosenthal provides short synopsis.</ref><ref>Sobchack, 2006 p. 23: "...one frequent minor theme worth noting in the exotic melodramas is that of sacrifice...Tiger Haynes is mauled to death for love of his daughter in Where East Is East."</ref>

{{quote box|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk | fontsize=100%|salign=center | quote=At first glance, Browning's ''Where East Is East'' seems to deploy many of the well-known stereotypes concerning the Orient that were familiar from [Hollywood] productions of the 1910s and 1920s.— above all, in the notion of the East as fundamentally different and unique. At the same time the concept that 'East is East' is satirized through the staging of the Orient as an assortment of costumes and gestures. The conjunction 'where' [in the movie's title] hints at the fictional dimension that the East accrued through Hollywood films. In Browning's ironic use of Kipling's phrase, it is, above all, this constructed world of cinematic fiction that harbors the myth of the East... it is only ''there'' that 'East is East.' — Film historian Stefan Brandt in ''White Bo[d]y in Wonderland: Cultural Alterity and Sexual Desire in'' Where East Is East (2006)<ref>Brandt, 2006 p. 134: Italics for "there" in original.</ref>}}

In a key sequence in which the American Bobby Bailey ([[Lloyd Hughes (actor)|Lloyd Hughes]]), nicknamed "white boy", is briefly seduced by the Asian Madame de Sylva (mother to Bobby's fiancee Toya), Browning offers a cliche-ridden intertitle exchange that is belied by his cinematic treatment. Film historian Stefan Brandt writes: "Browning here plays with the ambiguities involved in the common misreading of Kipling's poem, encouraging his American audience to question the existing patterns of colonial discourse and come to conclusions that go beyond that mode of thinking. The romantic version of the Orient as a land of eternal mysticism is exposed here as a Eurocentric illusion that we must not fall prey to."<ref>Brandt, 2006 p. 135 and see p. 136 for on this subject.</ref>

Browning's presentation of the alluring Madame de Sylva -whose French title diverges from her Asian origins- introduces one of Browning's primary themes: ''Reality vs. Appearance''. Rosenthal notes that "physical beauty masking perversity is identical to the usual Browning premise of respectability covering corruption. This is the formula used in ''Where East Is East''. Tiger's thorny face masks a wealth of kindness, sensitively and abiding paternal love. But behind the exotic beauty of Madame de Silva lies an unctuous, sinister manner and callous spitefulness."<ref name=":2">Rosenthal, 1975 pp. 24–25</ref>

The animal imagery with which Browning invests ''Where East Is East'' informed Lon Chaney's characterization of Tiger Haynes, the name alone identifying him as both "tiger hunter and the tiger himself."<ref>Brandt, 2006 p. 139</ref> Biographer Stuart Rosenthal comments on the Browning-Chaney characterization of Tiger Haynes:

{{blockquote|Tiger's bitterness in ''Where East is East'' is the result of disgust for Madame de Silva's past and present treachery. [Tiger Haynes] is striving desperately to overcome [his] inner embarrassment and, by revenging himself, re-establish his personal feelings of sexual dominance.<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 31<br />Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 15: "Where East Is East...illustrates Browning's life-long tendency to interweave images of sex and race, creating an ambivalent narrative of sensual fulfillment and frantic dissillusionment."</ref>}}

As in Browning's ''The Unknown'' (1927) in which protagonist Alonzo is trampled to death by a horse, "animals become the agents of destruction for Tiger [Haynes] in ''Where East Is East''."<ref>Rosenthal, 1975 p. 12: "Similarly, animals become the agents of destruction for Tiger in Where East Is East ..."</ref>