May 19 – 21, 2011 at the Aero Theatre

Decades before Tim Burton and David Lynch, early cinema pioneer Tod Browning created one of the most bizarre, unsettling bodies of work the American cinema has ever known. After starting his career as a protegé to D.W. Griffith, Browning made his mark in the silent era with a series of nightmarish depictions of underworld antiheroes, often collaborating with actor Lon Chaney. The coming of sound only gave Browning an additional tool with which to craft his deeply personal nightmares, and in the 1930s he directed several horror classics - most famously FREAKS and DRACULA.

Join us for a retrospective of the terrifyingly glorious works of Tod Browning, which also includes THE UNKNOWN, THE UNHOLY THREE, THE DEVIL-DOLL and MARK OF THE VAMPIRE.

Series compiled by Grant Moninger and Gwen Deglise. Program notes by Jim Hemphill, with additions by Beth Hanna.