He'll Geek, pt. 5

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Tod Browning was on top of the world. He had made the climb from carnival roustabout to sideshow performer to film director. He had a long and fruitful collaboration with Lon Chaney Sr., one of the biggest film stars of the silent era, then successfully transitioned to talkies with the stellar smash hit, Dracula starring Bela Lugosi. In the wake of Dracula’s success, Tod Browning was free to do whatever he wanted.

He made was a movie called Freaks and it stopped his career dead in its tracks. Freaks came from a 1923 short story called Spurs written by Tod Robbins, an American mystery and horror author. Spurs tells the dark tale of Jacques, a dwarf performer in a French circus who falls in love with the one of the troupe’s other performer’s, a beautiful, full-sized, bareback rider named Jeanne Marie. Jacques proposes to Jeanne Marie who accepts, but only because he has recently come into a large inheritance. After the wedding, Jeanne Marie makes a cruel remark about Jacques, saying that she should carry her “little ape” all around France on her shoulders.

As morality plays go, she ends up having to do just that.

Years earlier, before Dracula, Browning had urged MGM to pick up the story rights to Spurs and now, with his Dracula cache, he returned to his old studio to make his dream picture. MGM’s Irving Thalberg offered Browning the chance to direct a film called Arsene Lupin, an A list mystery thriller to star A list actor John Barrymore. It was a prestige gig all the way, but Browning turned the offer down, electing to develop Spurs instead.

Freaks, like Spurs, is a revenge tale set in a carnival sideshow, but Browning’s re-working of Robbins’ story made it, if anything, even tougher and more horrifying than the shocking original. The film tells the story of Cleopatra, a beautiful trapeze artist, who is dating the carnival’s muscle man, Hercules. Cleopatra learns that Hans, one of the little people in the carnival’s “freak show,” (which is regrettably what they were called in those days), has just come into a large inheritance. Armed with this information, Hercules and Cleopatra set a nefarious plot into motion.

Hans was played by Harry Earle who stood 3’ 3” and travelled the country with three other little people as The Doll Family. One of them, his sister Daisy, played his beloved, Freda in the film. In the story Cleopatra seduces Hans away from Freda. In a truly heartbreaking scene, Freda, with her pinched, child’s voice, tries to warn Hans. “To me, you’re a man. To her, you’re only something to laugh at.” Hans ignores the warning, choosing the beautiful and statuesque Cleopatra over tried and true Freda.

What sets Freaks apart from other films set in carnivals and sideshows is that it dwells upon, and stars, “freak show” performers (to use the ugly term of the day). In reality, these are people suffering genetic anomalies and/or birth defects that had the misfortune of being born in a harsh, unenlightened time where their options were limited and their demands for dignity often fell upon deaf ears.

Joining Harry and Daisy Earle in the film was a who’s who of popular “human oddity performers” of the day. Real life Siamese Twins Violet and Daisy Hilton, Johnny Eck, also known as “The Man Without A Body” who had nothing below his rib cage but was an excellent pianist. Koo Koo The Bird Girl, in reality, Minnie Woolsey, who suffered from Virchow Seckel Syndrome. Prince Randi, The Human Torso, no arms, no legs, but if you want to see how he lights a cigarette, Freaks is the film for you! And, perhaps most famously, “Schlitzie,” real name Simon Metz who, along with Elvira and Jenni Lee Snow, suffered from microcephaly, a neurological disorder that left them with abnormally small brains and skulls. As adults, they had the mentality of a three or four year old, but were painfully sweet and charming individuals.

Now, does Freaks exploit these people? Undoubtedly. To begin with the film is called Freaks. However, the film also shines a light on the casual cruelty its cast of characters had to live with on a daily basis. To quote one of the barkers in the movie. “We didn’t lie to you folks. We told you we had living, breathing monstrosities. They did not ask to be brought into the world, but into the world they came.”

Okaaaaaaaay.

That said, left tom themselves, the so-called freaks exist in a happy, peaceful Eden. The serpents, the true monsters in the story, are Cleopatra and Hercules, the individuals society considers beautiful.

It is the films shocker ending that caused the most controversy. At an elaborate ceremony, the other sideshow performers inform Cleopatra, who they think is going to marry Hans, that they accept her and begin chanting, in their own idiosyncratic way, “Gooble-Gobble, one of us. Gooble-Gobble, one of us.”

This proves too much for Cleopatra, who finally loses her shit and lets her revulsion show. The “freaks” take their revenge by killing Hercules (in the first draft he was castrated). As for Cleopatra, they do keep their promise of making her literally, one of them. In the film’s final shot, we see that Cleopatra has been transformed into… Well, go find it online. I’m not going to show you.

BUT! This is also contrary to theme of the picture. If the “freaks” are truly innocent and beautiful, them joining their ranks should not be seen as a punishment. I’m confused!

MGM tested the film after its completion and the results were, how you say, a disaster. It’s not that people did not like the film. They hated it. It made them furious! Thalberg, over Browning’s protestations, cut out 26 minutes, reducing it from 90 minutes to one hour and four minutes. But all that did was give people slightly less to hate. The film was banned in the UK outright. Rumor has it that a woman threatened a lawsuit claiming the film caused her to miscarry.

MGM pulled the film from release and threw it in the vault where it remained for decades. Browning did continue to work and made a handful of other films (including 1935’s atmospheric, Mark Of The Vampire), but he never recovered the momentum he had after Dracula.

Freaks was shown again in 1962 at the Venice International Film Festival and began its slow reappraisal. It’s available today and, while by no means a mainstream hit, is considered one of the pillars of American cult cinema.

Coming up, Guillermo Del Toro’s remake of Nightmare Alley. Also, who remembers Ssssssssss??

One of the many great mini-documentaries about Freaks.