ABSTRACT
Unlike perhaps any other filmmaker past or present, the films of Tod Browning seem to invite a peculiarly biographical form of commentary. In striking contrast to the critical discourse on other film directors, discussion of Browning often turns to what he did before making films. The impulse to correlate the diegesis of several noted films with certain features of the director’s precinematic résumé has become a characteristic trope of Browning scholarship. In particular, many who have written about Browning mention that he began his professional career working in a sideshow. It is often suggested that these early life experiences had telling effects upon a number of his later films, including The Unholy Three (1925), The Show (1927), The Unknown (1927), and Freaks (1932), all of which center on the lives of characters who perform in the circus, sideshow, or dime museum. In a recent chapter devoted to Freaks, for example, Rachel Adams comments, “That a circus is the mise-en-scène for Browning’s most memorable work is unsurprising, since he often recalled his youthful experiences as a carnival performer as a source of inspiration for his films.” 1
