[8] Initially hired as a roustabout, he soon began serving as a "spieler" (a barker at sideshows) and by 1901 was performing song and dance routines for Ohio and Mississippi riverboat entertainment, as well as acting as a contortionist for the Manhattan Fair and Carnival Company.

[48] Film historian Stuart Rosenthal wrote that the Dean vehicles possess "the seemingly authentic atmosphere with which Browning instilled his crime melodramas, adding immeasurably to later efforts like The Black Bird (1926), The Show (1927) and The Unholy Three (1925).

[70][71] When Granny O'Malley assembles her faux-"family" in her parlor to deceive police investigators, the movie audience knows that "the grandmother is the head of a gang and a ventriloquist, the father a stupid Hercules, the mother a thief, the baby a libidinous, greedy [midget], and the pet...an enormous gorilla."

The deceptive scheme through which the thieves manipulate wealthy clients, demonstrates a control over "the suckers" who are stripped of their wealth, much as circus sideshow patrons are deceived: Professor Echo and his ventriloquist's dummy distract a "hopelessly naive and novelty-loving" audience as pickpocket Rosie relieves them of their wallets.

When bookkeeper Hector takes the stand in court, testifying in his defense against a false charge of murder, the reformed Echo applies his willpower to silence the defendant, and uses his voice throwing power to provide the exonerating testimony.

An American con man Michael Nash (Conway Tearle) develops a moral conscience after falling in love with Pringle's character, Zara, and is consistent with Browning's "themes of reformation and unpunished crimes."

"[91] Tate's competitor in crime, the "gentleman-thief" Bertram "West End Bertie" Glade (Owen Moore, becomes romantically involved with a Limehouse cabaret singer, Mademoiselle Fifi Lorraine (Renée Adorée).

Film historian Boris Henry points out that "it would not be surprising if the fights that Lon Chaney as Dan Tate mimes between his two characters (The Blackbird and The Bishop) were inspired by actor-director Max Linder's performance in Be My Wife, 1921.

A conflict emerges when Joe's cohorts and rivals in crime, "The Admiral" Herrington (Owen Moore) and English Charlie Wing (Kamiyama Sojin), members of "the black spiders of the Seven Seas" appear on the scene.

Fishing wire looped around his blackened eye sockets, a set of painfully inserted, shark-like teeth producing a hideous grin, a ludicrous wig under a top hat, and white pancake makeup achieved Chaney's kinky look.

[129] Browning presents a menagerie of circus sideshow novelty acts from the fictitious "Palace of Illusions", including disembodied hands delivering tickets to customers; an illusionary beheading of a biblical figure (Gilbert as John the Baptist); Neptuna (Betty Boyd) Queen of the Mermaids; the sexually untoward Zela (Zalla Zarana) Half-Lady; and Arachnida (Edna Tichenor, the Human Spider perched on her web.

[144][145] Browning's theme of sexual frustration and physical mutilation ultimately manifests itself in Alonzo's act of symbolic castration; he willingly has his arms amputated by an unlicensed surgeon so as to make himself unthreatening to Nanon (and to eliminate the incriminating bifid thumb), so as to win her affection.

— Film critic Brian Darr in Senses of Cinema (July 2010)[160] In 1928, Browning and Lon Chaney embarked upon their penultimate collaboration, West of Zanzibar, based on Chester M. De Vonde play Kongo (1926).

"[169] The redemptive element with which Browning-Chaney endows Pharos/Dead Legs fate is noted by Rosenthal: "West of Zanzibar reaches the peak of its psychological horror when Chaney discovers that the girl he is using as a pawn in his revenge scheme is his own daughter.

The Asian seductress, Madame de Sylva (Estelle Taylor), Tiger's former wife and mother to Toyo—who abandoned her infant to be raised by Tiger—returns to lure Bobby from Toyo and ruin the couple's plans for conjugal bliss.

Film historian Stefan Brandt writes: "Browning here plays with the ambiguities involved in the common misreading of Kipling's poem, encouraging his American audience to question the existing patterns of colonial discourse and come to conclusions that go beyond that mode of thinking.

[200] In a cast featuring some of MGM's top contract players including Conrad Nagel, Leila Hyams and Margaret Wycherly[201] Hungarian-American Bela Lugosi, a veteran of silent films and the star of Broadway's Dracula (1924) was enlisted by Browning to play Inspector Delzante, when Lon Chaney declined to yet embark on a talking picture.

Bronfen further notes critic's complaints that Browning failed to visually record the iconic vampiric catalog: puncture wounds on a victims necks, the imbibing of fresh blood, a stake penetrating the heart of Count Dracula.

[225] Bronfen emphasizes the "financial constraints" imposed by Universal executives, strictly limiting authorization for special effects or complex technical shots, and favoring a static camera requiring Browning to "shoot in sequence" in order to improve efficiency.

[231] Browning employs "a favorite device" with an animal montage early in the film to establish a metaphoric equivalence between the emergence of the vampires from their crypts and the small parasitic vermin that infest the castle: spiders, wasps and rats.

[213] Film critic Dennis Harvey writes: "Dracula's enormous popularity fast-tracked Browning's return to MGM, under highly favorable financial terms and the protection of longtime ally, production chief Irving Thalberg.

"[242][243] Film critic Leger Grindon cites the four "subsidiary motifs" recognized by Browning biographer Stuart Rosenthal: "appearances hiding truth (particularly physical beauty as a mask for villainy), sexual frustration, opposing tendencies within a protagonist that are often projected onto alter egos and finally, an inability to assign guilt."

Cleopatra's decision to wed the dwarf for his wealth and then dispose of him is not, in itself, a significant advance in villainy...her most heinous crime is committed when she teases Hans by provocatively dropping her cape to the floor, then gleefully kneels to allow her victim to replace it upon her shoulders...This kind of exploitation appears more obscene by far than the fairly clean act of homicide.

The freaks live by a simple and unequivocal code that one imagines might be the crux of Browning's ideal for society: 'Offend one of them, and offend them all'...if anyone attempts to harm or take advantage of one of their number, the entire colony responds quickly and surely to mete out appropriate punishment.

[266] The wedding banquet sequence in which Cleopatra and Hercules brutally degrade Hans is "among the most discussed moments of Freaks" and according to biographer Vivian Sobchack "a masterpiece of sound and image, and utterly unique in conception and realization.

[280] Rather than risk a legal battle with Universal Studios who held the rights to Browning's 1931 Dracula, he opted for a reprise of his successful silent era London After Midnight (1927), made for MGM and starring Lon Chaney in a dual role.

[282] Browning deviates from his 1927 silent film in that here the sleuth, Professor Zelen (Lionel Barrymore),[283] rather than posing as a vampire himself in a dual role, hires a troupe of talented thespians to stage an elaborate hoax to deceive the murder suspect Baron Otto von Zinden (Jean Hersholt).

[291] Rosenthal describes the one-minute sequence: "...Bela Lugosi and the bat-girl [Carol Borland] descend the cobweb-covered staircase of the abandoned mansion, their progress broken into a series of shots, each of which involves continuous movement of either the camera, the players, or both.

Stuart Rothenthal explains: "Lionel Barrymore in The Devil-Doll makes an attempt [as did Lon Chaney in The Road to Mandalay (1926) and West of Zanzibar (1928)] to protect his daughter from embarrassment and unhappiness by concealing his identity from her even after he has been cleared of embezzlement.

"[309] Film historians Stefanie Diekmann and Ekkehard Knörer report that the only direct link between Browning's fascination with "the grotesque, the deformed and the perverse"[79] and the traditions of the French Grand Guignol is actor Rafaela Ottiano who plays doll-obsessed scientist Matila.