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The Films Of Tod Browning:
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The director of Lon Chaney's creepiest movies and of the horror landmark Dracula isn't as well respected today as one might expect. Indeed, one might say Tod Browning's filmic reputation is...
When the popular mind thinks about Universal Studio's horror films of the 30s, three (possibly four) names come to mind when directors are mentioned: James Whale, Karl Freund, Edgar G. Ulmer (sometimes), and Tod Browning. Of the four, Whale is the most celebrated, Freund the most versatile, Ulmer the most underrated, and Browning...Well, what of him? His name is at the masthead of some of the most famous films of the genre, he is certainly somehow responsible for the genre's most notorious film, but was he a good filmmaker? Did he care about the finished product? Where does he rank today and what, pray tell, are we to make of him? Browning began his career in the deep recesses of the silent era, as an assistant and some-time extra player for D. W. Griffith. He worked at MGM directing many of Lon Chaney's most bizarre (if not best) films and finally settled at MGM at the dawn of the sound era, making several visits to Universal, and remained there until his retirement from filmmaking at the end of the decade.
It was during this time he was involved with the films for which he is most associated in the popular mind: Dracula. Mark Of The Vampire, and Freaks. The Devil Doll, his last true genre piece is something of an afterthought and so uncharacteristic of him, that it stands alone. It has become conventional wisdom to say that these films display a great talent in decline, a fall from grace precipitated by nebulous causes, possibly alcohol. Yet if one looks at these films and compares them to even one or two of his silent films, it is easy to see this is no talent in decline, but rather a workhorse hack conducting business as usual. Looking briefly at Dracula as the paradigm for the others, one can see all the Browning "touches" in full display. There is the attention grabbing opening; the wild ride to Castle Dracula, the first descent of the Count down the stairs, and so on. There is the perfunctory transition, poorly worked out and with which the screenplay barely bothers and finally the long, static, expository sequences filmed for the most part before a stationary camera.These latter scenes (of any Browning film, save Freaks), always give a feel of "let's film it quick and go home"; there is no passion in these passages.
Mark Of The Vampire (a remake of Browning's silent London After Midnight with Chaney) shows the same basic set of tricks, their order perhaps juggled. There are the flavorful shots of the countryside; the scenes inside Count Morass castle and the endless endless talk. At barely one hour's length, Mark seems longer than Dracula. It is significant to note, and this has been hinted at elsewhere by others, that the "best" parts of both these films were the work of a second unit led by the cameramen. I give full and unequivocal endorsement to this theory. Here in Mark, Browning had none other than James Wong Howe at his disposal; the bizarre Cocteau-like scenes of Luna flying (for example) must be his work. (Incidentally, at a film convention in Arlington several years ago, the late Carl Borland was asked what Browning was like on the set. Characteristically, she said (paraphrasing)"he just sat there and wasn't involved in anything. We didn’t even know he was there".). Of course in Dracula there was Karl Freund on hand for the camera work and no doubt much of the opening of the film.
Freaks is certainly one of the most written-about of films, so suffice it to say that here Browning got some things right. He turned his usual method on its head, saving the big scene for the end and the exposition comes near the top. Nevertheless, it is the bizarre subject matter and (admit it!) our desire to look at freaks that draws us in, not anything Browning does. Throughout, his camera placement is rudimentary; one can see the same sort of work in a Biograph split reeler from 1909. The sound recording is atrocious; this film remember, was shot at Metro, with best facilities in Hollywood. Who else but Browning could diminish the power of the freaks' banquet by filming it so flatly? Or miss so much significant dialog exchanges in this seen that are vital to really understanding the terribly ironic last scene?
Looking briefly back to the famous Chaney-Browning collaborations of the Twenties, it can be seen quite clearly that Chaney did his best work for others. Look at The Penalty or The Hunchback Of Norte Dame or The Phantom Of The Opera or Tell It To The Marines or the sound version of The Unholy Three. None with Browning, none with the raggedy quality of a Browning film. And yet, we come back to the beginning to the question: is this evidence of a great talent in decline? Taking a brief glimpse at a few of Browning's silent films will lay this notion to rest; any two will serve, be they from the melodramatic or the film-noir vein. Looking at the silent The Unholy Three, one sees the self-same flaws marking the later talkies: a provocative idea, an arresting set piece and endless inter-titles punctuating flatly-lit draggy scenes unpunctuated by editing; Jack Conway's sound remake, creaky as it is in the manner of many early talkies virtually skips along by comparison; in fact it is the sound version that most people remember, mistaking it for the original, and believing that Browning was its director. The Unknown is even more ragged, more unstructured. Here too, the arresting (and extremely lurid and unpleasant) plot conceit, the flat lighting, the cast--save Chaney and a young Joan Crawford--apparently at sea, waiting for direction that is not there, and a general formlessness and obviousness on the director's part of the tremendous Grand Guignol potential of this material. The plot constantly cries out for a macabre laugh, which is well beyond Browning; he is too involved with the castration-fear aspects of the story.
The net can be cast further, pulling in more examples from both the sound and silent era; the question, however, begins to be begged. Rather than a once great craftsman whirling into a decline during the Thirties, it can been seen that Browning is really a case of a mediocre hack having his extremely limited repertoire thrown into unflattering relief when compared to filmmakers who had a point of view (Whale), a flair for Gothic Romanticism and a taste for the flamboyant (Freund), and a highly personal vision (Ulmer). His approach toward filmmaking, well within the mainstream in 1915, was already long outdone by as early as the mid-twenties. Is there nothing of value remaining? What is the legacy of Tod Browning? There are the films of the thirties and they remain. They are highly flawed, and do not pass muster as classics of filmmaking but they contain the work of people greater than Browning and without these films, we would be all the poorer for not having this record: Lon Chaney acting out his fetishes and phobias in the guise of the warped and the crippled; poor, doomed, egomaniac Bela Lugosi descending the stairs of castle Dracula, defining the vampire forever while cursing his career in ways he could not then know; Carol Borland and Lugosi (still in his prime) vamping each other and suggesting things between them better left unthought; Johnny Eck, Prince Randian, Zip and the other freaks lit by the light of a thunderstorm.
These images deny even the tone-deaf blandishments of the director, to burn themselves indelibly into the memories of those who love horror movies. As the bulk of Tod Browning's oeuvre fades to obscurity, his memory hitches a ride on the work of others far greater, far more memorable, and far more talented than him . It is a strange kind of fame. Yes, a strange sort of fame for a strange sort of director. There's no doubt that Tod Browning's films will be discussed and "cussed" endlessly...but never forgotten. Article copyright Gene Dorsogna |
