The Unholy Three (1925) was the film in which director Tod Browning truly discovered his voice as a filmmaker. His previous thrillers had flirted with the unusual, but The Unholy Three is a brisk plunge into the perverse. Its uncanny mixture of crime, suspense, carnival freaks and cross-dressers would lay the groundwork for the outre pleasures of the American cult film. It was also a comeback film for Browning, who had fallen into a slump while under contract to Universal Studios. Resorting to alcohol, he lost his prestigious position at Universal, and took on work at such low-budget concerns as the Truart Film Company and FBO. Because they had worked together at Universal, MGM's newly-installed production head Irving Thalberg offered him a one-shot opportunity to make a profitable film.

Browning chose to adapt a peculiar novel by Clarence Aaron "Tod" Robbins called The Unholy Three. Lon Chaney stars as Professor Echo, a dime museum ventriloquist who forms a bizarre crime syndicate with the help of a midget, Tweedledee (Harry Earles), Hercules the strong man (Victor McLaglen), a beautiful pickpocket (Mae Busch) and a giant ape. Echo dresses up as a kindly grandmother, while Tweedledee assumes the guise of her infant grandchild. When a Christmas Eve burglary ends in murder, the trio turn against one another while hiding out in a remote cabin.

Producer/Director: Tod Browning
Screenplay: Waldemar Young, Based on the novel by Clarence Aaron "Tod" Robbins
Cinematography: David Kesson
Production Design: Cedric Gibbons and Joseph C. Wright
Editing: Daniel J. Gray
Cast: Lon Chaney (Echo), Harry Earles (Tweedledee), Victor McLaglen (Hercules), Mae Busch (Rosie O'Grady), Matt Moore (Hector), Matthew Betz (Regan), Edward Connelly (The Judge).
BW-87m.

by Bret Wood