Tod Browning

The Mystic

The Mystic

A fantastically atmospheric but rarely seen missing link in the development of Tod Browning’s artistry, set amid his favored milieu of shadowy sideshows and clever criminals, The Mystic provides a striking showcase for silent-era diva Aileen Pringle, who sports a series of memorably outré looks (courtesy of art deco designer Erté) as Zara, a phony psychic in a Hungarian carnival who, under the guidance of a Svengali-like con man (Conway Tearle), crashes—and proceeds to swindle—American high society. Browning’s fascination with the weird is on full display in the eerie séance sequences, while his subversive moral ambiguity extends surprising sympathy to even the most seemingly irredeemable of antiheroes.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1925
  • 74 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.33:1
  • English

Available In

Collector's Set

Freaks / The Unknown / The Mystic: Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers

Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers

Blu-ray Box Set

2 Discs

$48.96

Collector's Set

Freaks / The Unknown / The Mystic: Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers

Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers

DVD Box Set

2 Discs

$27.96

The Mystic
Cast
Aileen Pringle
Zara
Conway Tearle
Michael Nash
Mitchell Lewis
Zazarack
Robert Ober
Anton
Stanton Heck
Carlo
David Torrence
James Bradshaw
Gladys Hulette
Doris Merrick
DeWitt Jennings
Inspector of police
Carrie Daumery
Woman at séance
Joseph Hazelton
Sideshow spectator
Credits
Director
Tod Browning
Story by
Tod Browning
Scenario by
Waldemar Young
Settings by
Cedric Gibbons
Settings by
Hervey Libbert
Photography by
Ira H. Morgan
Assistant camera
Willard Sheldon
Film editor
Frank Sullivan
Assistant director
Errol Taggart
Titles
Joe Farnham
Costumes
Erté

Current

Tod Browning’s Ballyhoo Art
Tod Browning’s Ballyhoo Art

The director of Freaks, The Unknown, and The Mystic tested the limits of early-Hollywood taste with his provocative visions of carnival life and society’s outcasts.

By Farran Smith Nehme