Finishing off that Criterion Tod Browning set with what is evidently the least known of the three films therein… Interesting that the titular mystic is actually a somewhat secondary character; she’s one of a group of circus gypsies recruited by an American crook, Michael Nash, as part of a scheme to part people from their money through staged seances. But Nash gets greedy and this ultimately results in a somewhat unexpected complication. Not a million miles removed from something like Nightmare Alley, I suppose, albeit a couple of decades before that… Browning couldn’t get any of his usual cast (including Lon Chaney) so he had to make do with a bunch of people who seem to be pretty obscure now, though they all acquit themselves well enough, even if I never entirely bought Nash’s change of heart which drives the plot in the last third or so of the film. I’m mostly puzzled by the score Criterion used for the film, though… not that it’s bad, cos it’s not, it actually suits the film pretty well; it’s just that, frankly, it comes off sonically like an old Vitaphone track despite being newly written, i.e. not just music but sound effects as well, and the latter tend to be distracting just like they did in the old Vitaphone soundtracks I’ve heard. (Doesn’t help that Criterion presents the soundtrack in mono for some reason.) But on the whole it’s pretty well made and well presented; the production is solid early MGM, and the seance fakery actually produces a surprisingly ominous mood that’s more effective than you might expect. This whole set was well worth getting.
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