7:00 - FREAKS
Tod Browning (1932) 64 mins PG

Horror master Browning (Dracula) gathered an extraordinary cast of real-life “freaks” for this terrifying & surprisingly moral vision of life among the weird inhabitants of the sideshow world. Sumptuously produced but subsequently disowned by MGM after unsurprising accusations of tastelessness, this bizarre cult film of a trapeze artist who marries a dwarf, & then poisons him for his money, has many disturbing scenes of immense psychological & pictorial power. It also concludes with one of the most astounding final shots in Hollywood cinema.

8:15 - WEST OF ZANZIBAR
Tod Browning (1928) 100 mins

One of Browning’s lesser known films, adapted from the Broadway play Kongo, features a British music-hall magician who is paralysed in a tussle with his wife’s lover & moves to Africa where he transforms himself into the disturbing “Dead-Legs”, a jungle emperor darkly realised by the inimitable Lon Chaney (The Phantom of the Opera). Sweating through the passing years in Conradian madness, repressed sexual rage, & incestuous desire, “Dead-Legs” drives the film to a climax of revenge. With Lionel Barrymore & Warner Baxter.

35mm print courtesy of George Eastman House.

9:30 - THE UNKNOWN
Tod Browning (1927) 49 mins

The best & most disturbingly surreal of the 10 ofteizarre films which Browning & Lon Chaney made together. Chaney plays a strangler masquerading as “Alonzo the Armless Wonder” who uses his feet in a knife-throwing act. He finds himself competing for the affections of a pretty equestrienne (Joan Crawford) who cannot bear to be touched by men. Unsurprisingly, macabre complications arise. The berserk finale is l’amour fou mixed with Grand Guignol.

Print courtesy of NFSA.

CTEQ Annotation:
'The Unknown' by Michael Koller