Tag: tod browning

Tod Browning, “The Mystic”: Film History Series

Ira H. Morgan, “Actress Aileen Pringle as Zara”, Todd Browning’s 1925 silent “The Mystic”, Costume by Roman Petrovich Tyrtov (aka Erté)

“The Mystic” was a 1925 silent drama film directed by Tod Browning for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The script was co-written by Browning and Waldemar Young, who over the course of his career wrote screenplays for over eighty films. The film was produced by Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg who, two years before, had finished production on a drama film starring Lon Chaney, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”. Although Chaney was Browning’s immediate choice for the role of Michael Nash, he was unable to hire Chaney for “The Mystic” due to scheduling issues. 

“The Mystic” starred Aileen Pringle, a stage and film actress who had worked previously with Rudolph Valentino in the 1920 “Stolen Moments” and with Conrad Nagel in the 1924 adaptation of Elinor Glyn’s romance novel “Three Weeks”. Her co-star was Conway Tearle, who began his career as a stage actor in London and later on Broadway. Over his thirty-six year career, he appeared in over ninety films and, at one point, was thought to be the highest-paid actor in America.  

The cinematography was done by Ira H. Morgan who later successfully transitioned from silent to sound films. He worked extensively over his long career with major studios including Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Morgan’s credits included Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times”, George W. Hill’s “Tell It to the Marines”, Sam Katzman’s East Side Kids “Bowery Champs” and the Screen Gems television series “The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin”, among others. 

The gowns in “The Mystic”, worn by Aileen Pringle in her role of the gypsy Zara, were created by the well-known Russian-born French artist and designer Roman de Tirtoff, known to the world as Erté. Brought to the United States by Louis B. Mayer, Erté first designed the sets and costumes for the 1925 silent film “Paris”. He later did designs for such MGM silent films as “Ben-Hur”, “The Comedian” and “Dance Madness”, as well as William Randolph Hearst’s 1920 silent drama “The Restless Sex”. 

Released in September of 1925, one print of “The Mystic” has survived. It has a running time of seventy minutes and has English inter-titles. It is available as a web file at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Mystic_(1925)_by_Tod_Browning.webm

Bottom Insert Image: Ira H. Morgan, “Aileen Pringle and Conway Tearle”, 1925, Film Still from “The Mystic”, Director Tod Browning, MGM

Calender: February 14

A Year: Day to Day Men: 14th of February

Sports Attire

On February 14, 1931, the film “Dracula” directed by Tod Browning is released throughout the United States.

“Dracula”, starring Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, was produced by Universal Studios and is based on the 1924 stage play “Dracula” written by Hamilton Deane and John L Balderston. The play was based loosely on the novel by Bram Stoker.

Bram Stoker’s novel had already been filmed without permission as “Nosferatu” in 1922 by the German expressionist film maker F.W. Murnau. Bram Stoker’s widow sued for plagiarism and copyright infringement, and the courts decided in her favor, essentially ordering that all prints of “Nosferatu”  be destroyed. Enthusiastic young Hollywood producer Carl Laemmie, Jr. also saw the box office potential in Stoker’s gothic chiller, and he legally acquired the novel’s film rights.

Decision on casting the title role proved problematic. Initially, Laemmle was not at all interested in Lugosi, in spite of good reviews for his stage portrayal. Lugosi had played the role on Broadway, and to his good fortune, happened to be in Los Angeles with a touring company of the play when the film was being cast. Against the tide of studio opinion, Lugosi lobbied hard and ultimately won the executives over, thanks in part to him accepting a paltry $500 per week salary for seven weeks of work.

Due to the limitations of adding a musical score to a film’s soundtrack during 1930 and 1931, no score had ever been composed specifically for the film. The music heard during the opening credits, an excerpt from Act II of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, was re-used in 1932 for another Universal horror film, “The Mummy”. During the theatre scene where Dracula meets Dr. Seward, Harker, Mina and Lucy, the end of the overture to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Numberg can also be heard.

Today, “Dracula” is widely regarded as a classic of the era and of its genre. In 2000, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. It was ranked 79th on Bravo’s countdown of The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. To many film lovers and critics alike, Lugosi’s portrayal is widely regarded as the definitive Dracula.