Cast:
Wallace Ford (Phroso), Leila Hyams (Venus), Olga Baclanova (Cleopatra), Rosco Ates (Roscoe), Henry Victor (Hercules), Harry Earles (Hans), Daisy Earles (Frieda), Rose Dione (Madame Tetrallini), Daisy and Violet Hilton (The Siamese twins), Schlitzie (Himself), Josephine Joseph (Half Woman-Half Man), Johnny Eck (Half-Boy), Frances O'Connor (Armless girl), Peter Robinson (Human skeleton), Olga Roderick (Bearded lady), and Koo Koo (Herself) Directed by Tod Browning (#031 - Dracula, #470 - Mark of the Vampire, and #516 - The Unknown)
Review:
Admittedly, a horror movie can take time to appreciate, particularly ones that were given the shaft like this one was. After all, the director associated with a film involving "Freaks" seemed exactly the one to direct it. Tod Browning left high school before graduation in order to join the circus. After years of carnivals and vaudeville, he became an actor in 1909, primarily in slapstick shorts, although he was hired in 1913 by D. W. Griffith near the twilight of his time at Biograph Studios. A 1915 accident involving him being drunk while at the wheel of an automobile led to injuries that kept him in bed for a considerable amount of time, which gave him inspiration to write (he had already done a few couple of short films as a director). He returned to work in film after time away, serving as an assistant director on Griffith's Intolerance (1916), and Jim Bludso (1917) was his first feature film. Browning's best work is associated with the star in Lon Chaney, who he did ten features with from 1919 to 1928 (Dracula, Browning's one key success in the sound genre with audiences, was meant to star Chaney before he fell ill). When the sound era dawned, Browning did nine feature films before retiring in 1939. The film is loosely based on the short story "Spurs" by Tod Robbins, and the screenplay was done by Willis Goldbeck and Leon Gordon, while Browning also served as producer. Test screenings of the film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) proved a tough pill to swallow. Apparently, people ran out of the theater halfway through the movie - I guess a horror film just can't be too scary, and MGM cut the movie from an original run-time of 90 minutes to an hour. The climax was cut down, worse yet. The film did not have the "happy" ending in the original cut, instead going further into just what happened with the character of Cleopatra beyond a scream (because the original had her get trapped under a tree struck by lightning). So yes, the fate of one of the characters is kept the same, but with a twist: their companion is present this time around, albeit as a soprano because of castration. Maybe it seemed strange for MGM to be the production company. They did do a couple of features beforehand in the 1920s, most notably with Browning's London After Midnight and The Unknown, but I think you will agree that having Irving Thalberg in your corner could be a double-edged sword. Once the film came and went with the box office as a failure, Browning's career never recovered, and he retired after his 46th feature in Miracles for Sale (1939), and he died in 1962 at the age of 82. Hell, in the era of trying to remake movies that were pretty good already, why not try to cover features that were given the shaft like this one? You wouldn't even have to change much of the actual script (one that does the simple art of presenting people as they are), since the only thing necessary would be to just show things as originally intended in the ides of retribution in what it means to go against the collective.
From the contemporary reaction by certain critics, you would think Freaks showed people getting chopped in half. One review actually said that people should put in the hospital pathological ward if the viewer considered it to be entertainment. I think we can safely say that they were clearly wrong. Hell, it didn't even take that many decades for people to carefully recognize that the audience was wrong, because counterculture audiences in Europe found a liking for it in the 1960s, and it became a midnight movie to enjoy in later years. Yes, you could consider it as a melodrama with an ounce of horror for the climax, but that is what makes it all the more interesting and useful to consider in the place of 1930s horror (besides, one grows tired of people deeming movies as just melodramas rather than being, you know, horror, which could also go for so-called psychological thrillers"). It was disrespected in its time by audiences that just wouldn't accept the idea of presenting circus people as anything other than what people thought they were, and the fact that the 90-minute version does not survive is a straight tragedy. The horror is not the people of the circus that happen to have no arms or are conjoined twins, the horror is the people who treat them like crap. What does it mean to be normal is the question provided here, which is done in a thoughtful and entertaining way that was ahead of its time when it comes to "pretty" people being punished by others that get away with it. So yes, there is a mix of established actors (Ford, Hyams, Baclanova, and Victor) mixing with performers such as the Earles, Schlitzie, and the Hilton twins (there were plans to have bigger names cast against the circus people such as Myrna Loy and Victor McLaglen, but this fell through). Granted, the acting is a bit on the okay side, and I do wonder exactly how one came to the decision to cast siblings in the Earles as characters meant to have feelings for each other. Baclanova (once nicknamed "The Russian Tigress") is the key to the film when you boil it down to basics, the embodiment of the horror of man in the cruelty that can be shown to others not like them. Sure, Ford and Hyams are mild counters to that idea, but they are barely important in the long run when you want to see just where mistreatment of people can get you (it should be noted that they were actually vaudevillians before becoming involved in film). Far from exploitation, the circus performers are just shown being themselves, whether that involves a man being able to light a cigarette with no arms or legs or conjoined twins having distinct lives of love.
Oh sure, the climax is the highlight, but consider the gooble-gabble scene a couple of scenes beforehand. Here one is trying to welcome someone into the community despite their misgivings, and all they do is react in disgust at the idea that they are at your level. That would be a pretty sad thing to hear, so it works quite well with what is needed here. And then the climax happens in a flash: a dark night with rain and people that lurk in the background ready to strike. The ending shot should've just been the shot involving the final fate of one of the characters rather than just being a "happy" ending, if only because it is more fun to show the logical conclusion of doing a morality tale rather than just trying to suck up to audiences who think happy endings need to happen in horror too. As a whole, Freaks was ahead of its time, and a little more credit is given for this film for its quibbles (a cut pace and decent if not quite professional cast) because of how it was treated in getting to theaters as opposed to later films with misunderstandings. Had the original cut survived the way it was intended, we would think it was even better and give Browning even more credit as a director, one who specialized in the exotic, the bizarre or just the mystery that comes with life that shows just who the real freak is, which makes it a horror film worth investing all of your time in as opposed to just cutting to the end for the big highlight.
Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.
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