Tod Browning will be forever associated with the horror genre, despite only actually directing a handful of scary movies. But this “handful” included some of all-time greats, films that we so intense for early cinema audiences, his successes ultimately led to his downfall…



Charles Albert Browning, Jr. was born in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. He was obsessed with showmanship and the entertainments business. As a child, he staged plays for his friends, and by the time he reached 16, he ran away from his wealthy family to join the circus.

Dropping Charles to hide his well-to-do roots, he became Tod, and travelled all over the States. His taste for the bizarre was clear from early on, as he worked as a talker for the Wild Man of Borneo, played a "The Living Corpse" (he was buried alive), and performing as a clown with the Ringling Brothers Circus. He also acted, danced and performed magic tricks.

Browning settled for a regular job and an established abode when he became a director of a variety theater in New York. It was here that an encounter with the legendary D. W. Griffith inspired him to go into cinema. He began acting along with comedian Charles Murray on single-reel nickelodeon comedies for Griffith and the Biograph company.

In 1913 Griffith, and soon after Browning, moved to California, and reunited in Hollywood. Browning continued to act in Griffith's films, now for Reliance-Majestic Studios (he even made an appearance as an extra in the epic Intolerance (1916)). He also acted in the popular ‘Ethel’ series of shorts.

In 1915, he began directing, and managed to churned out 14 short films in two years for Reliance-Majestic. But an incident later in the year would keep him out of the films for two years, and would all-but end his acting career.

In June of 1915, Tod and actors Elmer Booth and George Siegmann had a head-on collision with a train. Booth was killed instantly, while Seigmann and Browning suffered serious injuries.

Browning suffered a shattered right leg and the lost his front teeth. During his convalescence, Browning wrote scripts, and when he eventually returned to films, he confided himself to behind the camera, on taking on the occasional acting role.

In 1917, Browning directed his first feature-length film, Jim Bludso. The story of a riverboat captain who sacrifices himself to save his passengers from a fire was very well-received by critics.

After retuning briefly to New York, Browning made The Jury of Fate which featured Mabel Taliaferro in a dual role achieved with a double exposure technique. It was a groundbreaking effect at the time, and a small indication of
Browning’s taste for the bizarre.

In the spring of 1919, the begins of a legendary partnership was put in place, as Browning, working for Bluebird Productions (a subsidiary of Universal Pictures) Browning directed The Wicked Darling starring one Lon Chaney, Sr. It’s a melodrama in which Chaney played a thief who forces a poor girl from the slums into a life of crime.

Like most of the duo’s films, it wasn’t an out-and-out horror, but the characters, particularly those played by Chaney, are often sinister and morbidly fascinating. The Wicked Darling was the start of a beautiful friendship, and the first collaboration of a total of ten.

In 1920, Browning directed Chaney again in Outside the Law, a crime thriller, which saw Chaney playing two characters, both heavily reliant on make-up. The criminal Black Mike being a monstrous fiend, and the sinister Chinese butler was revived for the excellent Shadows.

Browning’s career was once again threatened in 1921, as the death of his father drove him to the edge and alcoholism. Universal released him, as did his wife (Alice nee Houghton), until he could prove he’d changed his ways.

Thankfully, he did recover, was taken back with his wife and got a one-picture contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer. The result was The Day of Faith, which was only moderately success, but successful enough for MGM to give him another chance.

Irving Thalberg, who, it’s claimed, united Browning with Lon Chaney in The Wicked Darling, bought the two future legends together for a third time to make a creepy melodrama about three circus performers who don disguises to con and steal from the rich. The Unholy Three (1925) is a real curio item, with Chaney dressing as an old woman, 23 year-old Harry Earles disguised as a baby, and strongman Victor McLaglen is ‘granny’s’ handyman. Browning is obviously able to relate to the circus sideshow aspect of the plot, and makes the poor but dishonest characters sympathetic antiheroes. Earles would later a play key in another Browning classic.


The film was a massive hit, and would actually be the first Chaney film to be remade in the talkie era. Naturally, studios and directors were falling over themselves to capture the pairing of Browning and Chaney. After Browning made drama ‘The Mystic’ and melodrama ‘Dollar Down’, MGM once again got the duo of Browning and Chaney for The Blackbird, another creepy crime thriller with Chaney as a “deformed” villain. It features a typical Browning ending, when the weird element is revealed as phony.

The Road to Mandalay (1926) as a plot similar to Browning’s later Devil Doll, with Chaney playing a crook trying to protect his daughter from the reality of life on the lam. This time, Chaney’s deformity is a missing eye with a rather gruesomely scarred eye socket. The Show (1927) again features key Browning elements; circuses, freaks, deformities and unrequited love, but no Chaney. Lionel Barrymore takes the bad guy role here.

The Unknown (1927), featuring Chaney as “armless” knife thrower Alonzo, obsessed with beautiful showgirl Joan Crawford. Again the typical “Browning reveal” is used, as Alonzo deformity is revealed to be ruse, but rarely more successfully than in this classic.

London After Midnight (1927), however, saw the duo launch into full-on horror for the first time. Well, if you discount the “Browning reveal” that is. Chaney is a razor-toothed, stovepipe-wearing “vampire”, which must have been extremely frightening for viewers at the time. It obviously lead to Browning being offered his most famous directorial assignment four years later. Currently, London After Midnight is currently the most eagerly sought-after lost film, unseen since 1965 (the last(?) print was destroyed in an MGM studio fire). A reconstructed version using the many remaining stills from the film was put together by TCM (Turner Network Television) in 2002.



The Big City (1928), another lost film, once again features Chaney as a gangster, although without a deformity this time. In West of Zanzibar (1928), Chaney is another bitter villain with a deformity, this times his legless…literally. He blames Lionel Barrymore, and exacts revenge not on, Barrymore, but his daughter (Mary Nolan). Another thriller with enough gruesome and shocking elements to fit nicely into the horror genre.

The final collaboration for the Browning and Chaney team was Where East is East (1929), of which only incomplete prints have survived. Again, a circus, an over-protective father and a make-up job for Chaney are in plot, but this is a nicer film that most of the other’s the twosome worked on together.