After a string of uninteresting silent films, Tod Browning had his first hit with The Unholy Three (1925), starring Lon Chaney Snr as an unhinged ventriloquist. Several collaborations with Chaney followed, each remarkable for Brownings startling images. In The Unknown (1925), Chaney plays Alonzo The Armless, and the sight of the actor drinking tea with his feet is not easily forgotten, nor is his vampire from London After Midnight (1927), which Browning later remade as Mark Of The Vampire (1935) starring Bela Lugosi. This talkie version is interesting for Carol Borlands mute performance as Luna, the female vampire whose look inspired Lily Munster in The Munsters. Browning also directed 1931s Dracula, which not only features Lugosis iconic Count, but also Dwight Fryes definitive portrayal of Renfield. Freaks, the filmmakers most powerful film, helped end his career when MGM, outraged by a movie that cast real-life circus freaks as the main characters, disowned the film. It was later acquired by Dwain Esper, the huckster distributor behind Reefer Madness, who saved it from oblivion.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
