Tag: Tod Browning

Tod Browning’s films were often unsettling, shocking and disturbing. They were populated with freaks, geeks, carny folk, ruthless people and vampires. Though his best-known film is 1931’s “Dracula,” with Bela Lugosi, his greatest productions were his collaboration with the “Man of a Thousand Faces,” Lon Chaney. So it seems only appropriate that two of his legendary films with Chaney: 1925’s “The Unholy Three” and 1927’s “The Unknown” open “American Gothic: A Tod Browning Retrospective” on Thursday evening at the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre. Born in Louisville, Ky., in 1880, Browning began performing and singing as a youngster. He ran away from  home at 16 and joined a circus, where he went from carnival baker to contortionist. Many of his films revolve around circuses. He later went into vaudeville and was introduced to D.W. Griffith in 1913 by an old vaudeville partner. ...