1194 Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers

[felipe]

Yes, this $70 SRP for a two-disc Blu-ray set is, I believe, unprecedented.

Which is more surprising considering the dvd is listed at 40, just 10 dollars more over any regular dvd release.

[MichaelB]

For $70 you'd think they'd at least throw in something a bit more substantial than another sad leaflet.

I was thinking this too. Tim Lucas and David Kalat aren't exactly hard to contact. If the Arrow and Eureka booklets demonstrate anything it's that horror has no lack of experts.

My regular commentary partner Johnny Mains has been writing a book about Freaks for some time, although in fairness it’s hard to see how Criterion would be aware of that.

[reaky]

My TCM Archives Lon Chaney Collection 2-discer has THE ACE OF HEARTS (1921), LAUGH CLOWN LAUGH (1928), THE UNKNOWN (1927), the Rick Schmidlin reconstruction of LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, the Kevin Brownlow MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES documentary, commentaries on CLOWN and UNKNOWN and a few other featurettes. That’s a package.

[ntnon]

My TCM Archives Lon Chaney Collection 2-discer has THE ACE OF HEARTS (1921), LAUGH CLOWN LAUGH (1928), THE UNKNOWN (1927), the Rick Schmidlin reconstruction of LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, the Kevin Brownlow MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES documentary, commentaries on CLOWN and UNKNOWN and a few other featurettes. That’s a package.

Could a Lon Chaney set follow the Tod Browning..?

[ryannichols7]

the day has come: not only is this a decade plus rumored title, but it comes with Criterion's first entry to the MGM silent era.

Almost. The Cameraman and Spite Marriage came out three years ago.

that release is literally sitting on my shelf. thank you for reminding me, I guess I just thought of it as being less unattainable than the Von Stroheim/Vidor/Sjöström titles that are so MIA

For $70 you'd think they'd at least throw in something a bit more substantial than another sad leaflet.

I was thinking this too. Tim Lucas and David Kalat aren't exactly hard to contact. If the Arrow and Eureka booklets demonstrate anything it's that horror has no lack of experts.

and Nehme/Smith as mentioned on the previous page, who aren't even traditional horror go tos, but there's enough crossover appeal here. Criterion just seem so reluctant to commission new commentaries, or even go out of their comfort zone with new contributors. I'm pretty sure Tim Lucas has only ever contributed a few essays, never anything on disc for them.

For $70 you'd think they'd at least throw in something a bit more substantial than another sad leaflet.

I was thinking this too. Tim Lucas and David Kalat aren't exactly hard to contact. If the Arrow and Eureka booklets demonstrate anything it's that horror has no lack of experts.

My regular commentary partner Johnny Mains has been writing a book about Freaks for some time, although in fairness it’s hard to see how Criterion would be aware of that.

never too late for them to delay the release and work something out! alas

[Black Hat]

and Nehme/Smith as mentioned on the previous page, who aren't even traditional horror go tos, but there's enough crossover appeal here.

That explains why they were at a few of the Brownings. To be fair, they both do an excellent job and have established themselves as the go-to sources, "brands" in 2023 parlance, for everything classic Hollywood. I get wanting to hear from different people but, I think most prefer the comfort of familiarity. I'm sure the numbers of what shorts from both do on the channel are convincing that this is what the people want too. Personally, I think it's cool to hear from them on genres they don't usually speak on and that, in and of itself, is different.

[yoloswegmaster]

David J. Skal posted this on FB on the day of the announcement:

Step right up! This October, THE CRITERION COLLECTION will release BROWNING’S SIDESHOW SHOCKERS, a two-disc set including the first Blu-ray release of FREAKS, the first digital release in any format of the newly restored print of THE UNKNOWN, with 10 minutes of previously missing footage, and the first home video appearance anywhere of THE MYSTIC, one of my favorite until-now-ridiculously-hard-to-see Browning titles, with a plot about carnival scam artists who penetrate high society with a spiritualism scam. Sounds a bit like NIGHTMARE ALLEY? You bet it does. I’ve contributed new audio commentaries for FREAKS and THE UNKNOWN, and an audio introduction for THE MYSTIC. I also do an audiobook-style reading of Tod Robbins’ short story SPURS, the inspiration for FREAKS. Finally, I curated the photo galleries for FREAKS and THE UNKNOWN, and can pretty much guarantee some images few people have ever seen before, especially from deleted scenes in FREAKS.

The listing on the Criterion site makes no mention of the commentaries being new and he already did a commentary for Freaks on the WB DVD release, so they could just be porting the previous commentary over (unless he made some updated comments). I do think that the The Unknown commentary are new since the only other home video release for The Unknown only had a commentary from Michael F. Blake/

[Finch]

The Unknown was quite the discovery for me. It is very well paced and Chaney is excellent. It does go some dark places for a late 1920s film but I must admit to being a bit disappointed by the very ending.

Spoiler

Having the horse stomp Alonso to death felt a bit like a copout. I was kind of anticipating an even darker and bleaker version of the film where Alonso succeeds at either murdering Malabar or causing him to lose his arms and anticipating that Nanon ceases to love Malabar. But she doesn't and Alonso kills her when he realises he can never have her; he's found almost immediately and executed for his crimes.

But I realise that it's not fair to hold it against the film that it ends the way it does because the filmmakers may have felt that it was already dark enough and maybe nothing else was written beyond the horse stunt sequence? The wikipedia page on the film says the script at one point did include Alonso murdering the surgeon and Cojo but "but these scenes never made it to the final print" although wiki provides no sources for that.

I'm curious about the score by Philip Carli. The Pordenone Festival screening had a score by Jose Maria Serralde Ruiz which Nitrateville's Mike Gebert described as "suitably dark and driving". Another Nitrateville member says from what he could recall, much of the additional 10 minutes is footage from the circus sequences but also a late bit with Nanon being warned by a fortune teller of a premonition she has about Malabar's stunt with the horses.

[hearthesilence]

I'm curious about the score by Philip Carli. The Pordenone Festival screening had a score by Jose Maria Serralde Ruiz which Nitrateville's Mike Gebert described as "suitably dark and driving". Another Nitrateville member says from what he could recall, much of the additional 10 minutes is footage from the circus sequences but also a late bit with Nanon being warned by a fortune teller of a premonition she has about Malabar's stunt with the horses.

Hey, Philip Carli! I remember him from the Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman House, so it makes sense he would be doing the score if it's the Eastman House's restoration. Not only an excellent pianist but I got the impression he was a terrific historian in his own right. (This was years ago, but he gave an extremely insightful rundown of Murnau's Nosferatu pretty much on-the-fly - I didn't realize the film had only survived thanks to the efforts of bootleggers.)

[criterionsnob]

Beaver

[Finch]

I almost thought Jerry Maren from the interview caps was a taller and aged Michael J Anderson with a mustache.

[FrauBlucher]

Freaks is currently on TCM. It looks very good.Really nice detail. I can't wait to see the bluray.

Edit: the ending scene was kind of rough.

[denti alligator]

Freaks is currently on TCM. It looks very good.Really nice detail. I can't wait to see the bluray.

Edit: the ending scene was kind of rough.

You mean, watching the scene was rough, or the print/restoration is rough?

[FrauBlucher]

Sorry. The picture quality

[dwk]

New episode of The Extras podcast about this set and The Devil Doll with George Feltenstein, Steve Haberman, and Constantine Nasr

[tanders1]

Just finished watching The Mystic and had some technical questions. For a film score from 2023, it appeared to be mono. It's that what everyone else heard? Also, the picture tends to jump in and out of focus slightly moving up during the entire movie. Is this normal?

[FrauBlucher]

I just finished watching the set. Freaks looks great. It really is a special old Hollywood novelty film. It's a one of kind. I loved the Unknown. Chaney was great in this. The Mystic was a disappointment. I was bored. It was slow, and the score didn't help. The set overall is a winner although more supps would've been appreciated

[Roger Ryan]

... The Mystic was a disappointment. I was bored. It was slow, and the score didn't help...

I was actually impressed by both The Mystic as a film and the new score which accompanies it. For me, The Unknown with it's more interesting story and Chaney's great performance has terrible pacing with a long middle section that plods along so slowly that the overall running time seems far longer than its 67 minutes. The Mystic, on the other hand, has a nice forward momentum where each successive scene builds on the previous one. Yes, it's reusing the same conceit as Browning's earlier The Unholy Three, but the medium scenes are fantastically inventive and I like how the viewer is never too sure where the characters' allegiances lie. As to the new score, I wish more silent film scoring would follow Dean Hurley's lead here where the emphasis is more on creating a textured soundscape appropriate for each sequence. The synched sound effects are subtle and, by utilizing a more textured soundscape, Hurley limits the amount of actual music scoring to those moments that really require it. In this way, the score is similar to music cues heard in a sound feature where there doesn't need to be wall-to-wall music. I don't know if I've seen another silent film that uses this approach and it's refreshing.

Just finished watching The Mystic and had some technical questions. For a film score from 2023, it appeared to be mono. It's that what everyone else heard? Also, the picture tends to jump in and out of focus slightly moving up during the entire movie. Is this normal?

Oh, and in a belated response to an earlier post: yes, Hurley's score is in mono* which is perfectly understandable given that the composer clearly wants his soundtrack to feel "vintage" as if it could have been constructed back in the mid-20s. As to the transfer, it comes from a fine-grain positive which has its limitations. For a formerly "lost" film, I thought the picture quality was pretty decent.

*I see that Chris' reviews notes a stereo split to some of the sound effects in The Mystic score, but none of that was apparent to me the two times I've viewed the film. Then again, I wasn't listening through headphones.

[FrauBlucher]

... The Mystic was a disappointment. I was bored. It was slow, and the score didn't help...

The synched sound effects are subtle and, by utilizing a more textured soundscape, Hurley limits the amount of actual music scoring to those moments that really require it. In this way, the score is similar to music cues heard in a sound feature where there doesn't need to be wall-to-wall music. I don't know if I've seen another silent film that uses this approach and it's refreshing.

I did like the sound effects but I didn't care for the very low end score. I prefer "wall-to-wall music". I felt like the story needed a dramatic soundscape to lift up the thing. But I'll have to give it a watch again. Maybe I'll feel differently

[domino harvey]

Endorsed by Bob Dylan (no, really)

[Never Cursed]

Made me very happy to see one of our own forum members congratulate the man himself

[ryannichols7]

Dylan taking over his own Twitter has been nothing short of brilliant. I love how we still don't have an actual confirmation of it, but there's no way it isn't him

[hearthesilence]

I'm pretty sure it's him - he may not be doing the actual tweeting, but I'm pretty sure the recommendation is completely his as well as the actual text of that tweet.

[Roger Ryan]

If you’ve read his most recent book (“The Philosophy of Modern Song”), you’ll know Dylan is an astute observer of film as he discusses movies almost as much as he talks about songs in its pages. It may have been in his “Chronicles” autobiography, but I remember him asking rhetorically “How many films really stay with you? Freaks is one of them, but I don’t know how many others”. So, Dylan definitely has an affinity for Tod Browning.