Although Tod Browning directed the 1931 classic Dracula and some of Lon Chaney's best movies, he is better known today for Freaks, which effectively sank his film career. Judging from the evidence in Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning: Hollywood's Master of the Macabre, this probably wouldn't have mattered to him. Authors David J. Skal (Screams of Reason and The Monster Show) and Elias Savada faced a difficult task in recounting the life of a man who "reveled in disturbing and provoking the public ... from a position of obsessive privacy," apparently caring nothing for posterity or even his reputation during his lifetime. Because Browning chose to reveal so little of his private self, any biography of him must by default focus on his career--which is itself strange and unsettling.

As a filmmaker, Browning established a reputation as a teller of pessimistic, even perverse tales, often featuring physically deformed characters (Chaney's specialty), which doubtless reflected his youthful experiences performing in carnival sideshows. Following the enormous success of Dracula, he assembled a cast of real sideshow performers to make Freaks, which appalled nearly everyone and was quickly removed from circulation. He soon found himself being quietly pushed out of filmmaking, and spent his final years leading a reclusive, slightly paranoid existence.

Readers of Dark Carnival should not expect to come away with a very clear picture of the intentionally shadowy Browning. Skal and Savada do an admirable job of showing us both the demanding "sadist" and the "great humanist" described by his colleagues, but for the most part, Browning's own thoughts and feelings must remain mysterious--which is just what he wanted. Dark Carnival includes photo sections, a genealogy, and filmographies that incorporate contemporary reviews. --Mary V. Burke

His career virtually began with that of motion pictures (he was an actor for D. W. Griffith), but filmmaker Tod Browning is remembered today for two early sound masterworks of horror: Dracula (1931), starring Bela Lugosi, and Freaks (1932), the bizarre, disquieting story of a traveling sideshow, cast with real-life human oddities. The outraged public reaction to the latter, which was quickly pulled from circulation, effectively derailed Browning's career. After a few final films, he withdrew to an eccentric retirement in Malibu until his death in 1962. Although his work was rediscovered by movie aficionados--Freaks became an arthouse staple in the antiestablishment 1960s--the director himself has remained largely anonymous. Skal and Savada rectify that situation with a detailed, painstakingly researched biography that draws on unpublished interviews with Browning's coworkers and friends as well as the new contributions of surviving family members. They call Browning's reclusive career and its dissolution "one of Hollywood's most mysterious vanishing acts." Their illuminating work should help win him his just place in the annals of cinema. Gordon Flagg