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Tod Browning, MGM, 1925. Aileen Pringle is Zara, a Hungarian carnival clairvoyant run by a mentor who knows the wires. They take the act to America to work rich widows; Conway Tearle is the man who complicates the con. Browning had been a carnival talker; the séance mechanics are shown, not hinted. No Chaney this time. Seventy-three minutes. The film is about how a reading is built: trapdoors, confederates, a client who wants to believe. Pringle’s face does the selling. The mystic of the title is a job title.
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A séance filmed from backstage. Browning had worked the carnival and shows every wire. No Chaney, and the con is the star: watch how long the film lets you admire the mechanism before it asks you to feel bad about it.
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