Freaks (1932)

Freaks (1932)

In Tod Browning's severely-censored horror classic about a fiercely-loyal group of circus 'freaks' - it was a shocking, bizarre and unsettling horror film, but a durable cult favorite. The unusual, creepy, and gothic horror film with real-life side-show "freaks" was one of his best works, and has been widely considered his signature film. The morality play remains a truly amazing masterpiece about an odd clique of sympathetically-portrayed, but grotesquely-deformed circus "freaks" in a traveling sideshow that took revenge on a beautiful, gold-digging, heartless high-wire trapeze artist that wronged one of the freaks. In an about-face, they savagely turned her into a monstrous half-human, half-bird.

Its exploitative taglines were intriguing:

Can a full grown woman truly love a midget?
Do Siamese twins make love?
What sex is the half man half woman?

The lurid and off-beat film creation deliberately cast real-life circus 'freaks' and various human aberrations to sensationalize its content. After initial disastrous preview screenings in February of 1932 (when people fled from the theatres), the prestigious MGM ordered Browning to edit down the almost-90 minute film and censor some of its distasteful segments. The infamous film was then released officially five months later at a length of 64 minutes - with severely curtailed characterizations and sideplots. Its premiere was in NYC on July 8, 1932, with "a warning that children will not be permitted to see this picture and adults not in normal health are urged not to!"

However, the drastic changes in the film did not improve the film's box-office business and to the studio's dismay, it was both a major financial and critical failure. MGM was so embarrassed and horrified by the film's premise and its reception that it withdrew the film from distribution a month after its initial release, and disowned it.

This controversial film redefined the concepts of beauty, love, and abnormality, but was so disturbingly ahead of its time that audiences stayed away in huge numbers. Many found it exploitative, abhorrent and "loathsome" with "unwholesome shockery," although it also sympathetically portrayed the 'abnormal and the unwanted' as resilient and adaptable human beings with complete compassion and understanding. It was only in the mixed-message ending when the freaks took savage and sadistic revenge. Overall, it made most audiences uncomfortable and engendered fright, uneasiness and animosity.

In 1947 after WWII, exhibition rights were sold and acquired by second-rate, exploitation filmmaker/distributor Dwain Esper for the next 25 years. Inevitably, he truncated it and toured it for an adults-only roadshow for the Excelsior Pictures Corporation (followed in some venues with a second film of nudist camp footage). It was advertised with alternative titles: Forbidden Love, The Monster Show, and Nature's Mistakes.

• in the opening sequence, a carnival barker (Murray Kinnell) enticed customers to enter his sideshow, and explained the freaks' code of honor: "We didn't lie to ya, folks. We told you we had living, breathing monstrosities. You laughed at them, shuddered at them and yet, but for the accident of birth, you might be even as they are. They did not ask to be brought into the world, but into the world they came. Their code is a law unto themselves. Offend one - and you offend them all."

• the barker introduced the customers to an off-screen creature penned up in an enclosure, causing one of the women to scream at the sight of the hideous human monstrosity:
  • "And now, folks, if you'll just step this way. You are about to witness the most amazing, the most astounding living monstrosity of all time. (woman's scream) Friends - she was once a beautiful woman. A royal prince shot himself for love of her. She was known as the Peacock of the Air..."
• to heighten suspense, the sight of the creature was postponed until the film's conclusion
• there were many oddities and grotesque deformities amongst the freak circus side show members:
  • the conjoined Siamese twins: Daisy and Violet Hilton
  • Prince Randian - the armless and legless "Living Torso" or "Larva Man" (a man without limbs and legs who slithered on the ground, and smoked cigarettes)
  • Johnny Eck the 'half-boy' (with nothing below his waist)
  • the "Living Venus de Milo" - the armless girl Frances O'Connor
  • the "Bearded Lady" - Olga Roderick
  • a "Human Skeleton" (incredibly skinny) - Peter Robinson, married to the "Bearded Lady"
  • the "Stork Woman" (Elizabeth/Betty Green)
  • Koo Koo - The "Bird Girl" (aka Minnie Woolsey, suffering from progeria) with a feathery outfit
  • four 'pinheads' or microcephalics (including Schlitze, who wore a dress)
  • Josephine-Joseph (as Herself/Himself) - a half-man/half-woman androgynous hermaphrodite
• two midgets Hans (Harry Earles) and devoted Frieda (Daisy Earles) were unusually sexually paired together; in one scene, fiancee Frieda rebuked Hans for smoking a large cigar: ("You must not smoke such a big cigar. Your voice was very bad at tonight's show") - implying in Freudian terms that he was too small to be enjoying a more manly phallic symbol. He tried to silence her: "I want no orders from a woman"
• in the film's most infamous 'Wedding Feast' scene, the 'freaks' welcomed high-wire trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), who had recently married gullible midget circus announcer Hans; Hans was due to claim an inheritance, but Cleopatra's dastardly intention, plotted with her strong-man lover Hercules (Henry Victor), was simply to poison Hans to death for his money; during the banquet, after Hans had married Cleo, the freaks began an unforgettable chant before passing around a loving cup to accept her:
  • "We accept her. We accept her. Googoo-goggle, Googoo-goggle. One of us, One of us"
• Cleopatra delivered a memorable speech to the 'freaks' - but she incurred the wrath of the tightly knit, loyal group of "nature's aberrations"; after being offered the loving cup, she rose stiffly from her chair, became extremely revolted by them, and made many dastardly comments toward the freaks; she threw the contents of her drinking cup at them; then, she challenged her ashamed new husband Hans, and then suggested giving him a childish horsey-back ride; she carried him on her shoulders for a "horsey-back ride", with Hercules assisting in the humiliation:
  • "You dirty, slimy FREAKS! Freaks, freaks! Get out of here!...Well, what are you going to do? What are you - a man or a baby?...What must I do? Must I play games with you? Must Mamma take you horsey-back ride?...Ha, ha, that's it! Horsey-back ride! Ha, ha, ha. Come, come, my little fly speck. Mamma is going to take you horsey- back ride. Giddy-up! Giddy-up, horsey!"

• during the film's final stormy night sequence, the 'freaks' made good on their threats as they crawled through the mud (some with knives in their mouths) to murder or emasculate muscleman Hercules (the film's dialogue and action were unclear on this point due to studio editing), and then pursue gold-digging Cleopatra to exact a horrible revenge on account of her treatment of Hans
• in the conclusion - the barker revealed the sexy and tall, transformed Cleopatra as a legless, feathered mutant chicken with a scarred and bruised face, and a drooping and squawking mouth; he introduced her:
  • "How she got that way will never be known. Some say a jealous lover, others that it was the code of the freaks, others the storm. Believe it or not, there she is...!"