In the dim glow of the big top, true monsters wear the masks of beauty and greed.

 

Tod Browning’s 1932 masterpiece Freaks remains one of cinema’s most provocative assaults on societal norms, blending raw humanity with visceral horror to challenge perceptions of otherness and revenge. This film, born from the carnival underbelly, continues to unsettle audiences with its unflinching gaze upon the marginalised.

 

  • The revolutionary casting of actual circus performers as themselves, blurring lines between fiction and reality for unparalleled authenticity.
  • A scathing critique of superficial beauty and moral corruption, inverting traditional horror archetypes.
  • Its tumultuous release history and enduring influence on disability representation and exploitation cinema.

 

The Big Top’s Shadowy Secrets

Shot amid the sawdust and greasepaint of real circus troupes, Freaks unfolds in a travelling sideshow where performers with congenital differences form a tight-knit family. At its heart lies Hans, a diminutive man played by Harry Earles, who harbours a deep affection for the statuesque trapeze artist Cleopatra, portrayed by Olga Baclanova. She, alongside her lover Hercules the strongman, concocts a scheme to seduce Hans for his inheritance from a jealous rival, Venus. What begins as a tale of unrequited love spirals into betrayal when Cleopatra poisons Hans, only for the freaks to exact a gruesome retribution that seals the film’s infamy.

The narrative draws heavily from Browning’s own immersion in carnival life during his youth, infusing every frame with an authenticity that scripted horror could never match. MGM’s lavish production contrasted sharply with the gritty realism of the sideshow sets, where living performers like Johnny Eck, the half-boy, and the conjoined sisters Daisy and Violet Hilton brought their real lives to the screen. This choice elevated Freaks beyond mere spectacle, transforming it into a poignant exploration of community forged in exclusion.

Key scenes pulse with symbolic weight: the wedding banquet where the freaks chant "We accept you, one of us," forcing Cleopatra to confront her otherness amid jeers and forced libations of wine from shared bowls. Browning’s direction here employs tight close-ups on contorted faces and limbs, not to titillate but to humanise, revealing flickers of joy and sorrow in eyes society deemed grotesque. The film’s pacing builds inexorably towards the storm-swept climax, where the freaks’ vengeance unfolds not in cartoonish excess but in chilling domesticity.

Beauty as the Ultimate Deformity

Central to Freaks‘ thematic punch is its inversion of monstrosity. Cleopatra embodies the true freakishness through her vanity and avarice, her physical perfection masking a soul rotten with deceit. Browning contrasts her with the sideshow denizens, whose physical variations foster loyalty and empathy absent in the "normals." This dichotomy echoes broader cultural anxieties of the Great Depression era, when economic despair amplified fears of bodily and social deviance.

Gender dynamics sharpen the blade: Cleopatra weaponises her allure in a patriarchal circus world, yet her downfall comes at the hands of a sorority of the strange, from the bearded lady to the living torso. Such portrayals prefigure feminist readings of horror, where female solidarity subverts male-gaze exploitation. Wallace Ford’s Phroso, the magician and voice of reason, navigates this web with wry humour, his performance grounding the film’s feverish tone.

Class tensions simmer beneath the canvas: the freaks represent the proletariat’s resilience against elite predation, their revenge a proletarian uprising in miniature. Browning, influenced by his silent-era collaborations with Lon Chaney, extends the actor’s "man of a thousand faces" ethos to non-actors, democratising horror’s expressive palette.

Carnival Realities and Production Perils

Browning’s insistence on authenticity stemmed from personal history; as a youth, he ran away to join circuses, experiencing the camaraderie and cruelty firsthand. Casting real freaks bypassed the era’s crude prosthetics, yielding moments of raw vulnerability, such as Schlitzie’s vacant stare or the Pinhead sisters’ eerie synchrony. Yet this verisimilitude sparked outrage; preview audiences walked out, vomiting at the banquet scene’s intensity.

MGM, fresh off the success of Browning’s Dracula, slashed the film from 90 minutes to 64, excising subplots like a knife-thrower’s subplot to mitigate backlash. Despite Irving Thalberg’s initial support, the studio buried it, releasing it to sparse second-run houses. In Britain, it faced outright bans until 1963, deemed "brutal and revolting" by censors fearful of inciting public disorder.

Behind-the-scenes tales abound: performers bonded deeply, with Earles mentoring his co-stars, while Baclanova immersed herself methodically, learning acrobatics. Budget overruns from location shoots in Big Bear Lake tested resolve, but the result was a film that defied Hollywood gloss for documentary-like starkness.

Sideshow Spectacle: Effects and Mise-en-Scène

Lacking elaborate special effects, Freaks relied on the performers’ bodies as the ultimate illusion-breakers. Browning’s cinematography, helmed by Merrit B. Gerstad, favoured naturalistic lighting to expose scars and asymmetries without glamour filters. Shadows danced across tents like spectres, composition framing groups to emphasise unity over isolation.

The storm sequence employed practical rain and wind machines for visceral chaos, culminating in Cleopatra’s transformation—crawling, clucking like a human chicken—a makeup triumph by Jack Dawn that lingered in nightmares. Sound design, pivotal in early talkies, amplified chants and gasps into an auditory assault, the wedding refrain echoing like a ritual incantation.

This restraint in effects underscored the horror’s psychological core: not what the freaks did, but the viewer’s projected revulsion. Compared to contemporaneous films like Frankenstein, Freaks prioritised lived deformity over constructed monsters, pioneering a subgenre of "real horror."

Reverberations Through Horror History

Freaks‘ legacy ripples across decades. It inspired David Lynch’s carnival grotesques in Twin Peaks and Dumbo‘s sympathetic elephants, while influencing The Elephant Man‘s dignified portrayals. Modern disability activists reclaim it as empowerment cinema, citing the freaks’ agency in their own narrative.

In slashers and body horror, echoes abound: the vengeful outcasts of The Hills Have Eyes owe a debt, as do the moral inversions in American Horror Story: Freak Show. Cult revivals in the 1960s, propelled by midnight screenings, cemented its status, with prints restored by Turner in the 1990s unveiling lost footage.

Culturally, it interrogated eugenics-era prejudices, predating Nazi horrors and paralleling American forced sterilisations. Scholars note its queer undercurrents, the freaks’ found family mirroring underground communities.

Enduring Controversies and Redemptions

Critics decry exploitation, yet defenders highlight consent; performers like Eck praised Browning for dignified work amid Depression poverty. Box-office poison initially, it now garners acclaim, with Criterion editions framing it as humanist tragedy.

Its impact extends to literature, echoing Katherine Dunn’s Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific no, GEEK LOVE, and theatre like Side Show. In an era of reality TV deformities, Freaks warns of voyeurism’s perils.

Ultimately, Browning’s vision endures because it forces confrontation: who are the real freaks in a world that devours difference?

Director in the Spotlight

Tod Browning, born Charles Albert Browning on 12 July 1880 in Louisville, Kentucky, emerged from a middle-class family but fled home at 16 to join travelling circuses and vaudeville troupes. This formative period immersed him in the worlds of freaks, illusionists, and drifters, shaping his lifelong fascination with outsiders and deception. Returning to civilian life, he dabbled in bootlegging before entering silent cinema as an actor and assistant director under D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett.

By 1915, Browning directed his first film, The Lucky Transfer, but gained prominence with Lon Chaney collaborations. Their partnership yielded classics like The Unholy Three (1925), a tale of criminal dwarfs remade in sound, and West of Zanzibar (1928), where Chaney played a vengeful paralytic. Browning’s silent masterwork London After Midnight (1927), lost save for stills, featured Chaney’s iconic vampire, blending horror with crime thriller elements.

Transitioning to sound, Browning helmed Universal’s Dracula (1931), launching Bela Lugosi to stardom despite studio-mandated cuts diluting his vision. Freaks followed at MGM, marking his boldest statement, though career repercussions were swift: typecast as a freak auteur, he directed lacklustre efforts like Fast Workers (1933) and Mark of the Vampire (1935), a Dracula redux with Lionel Barrymore.

Alcoholism and studio politics stalled output; The Devil-Doll (1936) showcased innovative miniature effects in a revenge plot, but Miracles for Sale (1939) flopped, ending his directing career. Retiring to Malibu, Browning supported himself modestly until death from cancer on 6 October 1962, aged 82. Influences from German Expressionism and his carnival roots permeated his oeuvre, cementing him as horror’s poet of the marginalised.

Comprehensive filmography highlights: The Unholy Three (1925, remade 1930) – Crooked schemes with Chaney as a ventriloquist; The Unknown (1927) – Chaney’s armless knife-thrower’s obsession; London After Midnight (1927) – Hypnotist vampire hunt; Dracula (1931) – Iconic adaptation; Freaks (1932) – Sideshow revenge; Mark of the Vampire (1935) – Atmospheric whodunit; The Devil-Doll (1936) – Shrink-ray vengeance.

Actor in the Spotlight

Olga Baclanova, born Olga Vladimirovna Baklanova on 19 August 1893 in Moscow, Russia, rose from aristocratic roots to become a silver-screen siren. Trained at Moscow’s Imperial Drama School under Konstantin Stanislavski, she debuted on stage with the Moscow Art Theatre, performing in Chekhov revues before the 1917 Revolution prompted her emigration.

Arriving in New York in 1923, Baclanova conquered Broadway in musicals like Deep in My Heart, her statuesque 5’9" frame and husky voice captivating audiences. Hollywood beckoned; Cecil B. DeMille cast her in The Volga Boatman (1926), but she shone in silents like The Docks of New York (1928) opposite George Bancroft. Talkies revealed her accent as an asset, leading to The Man Who Laughs (1928) as a gypsy queen.

Freaks (1932) crowned her notoriety as the treacherous Cleopatra, her transition from vamp to victim earning mixed acclaim amid controversy. Post-Freaks, roles dwindled; she appeared in Downstairs (1932) with John Gilbert and Cheating Blondes (1933), then retreated to teaching drama at California colleges. Marrying Russian architect Vladimir Dubinin in 1943, she lived quietly until death from heart disease on 6 September 1974, aged 80.

Baclanova’s career bridged eras, embodying exotic allure with dramatic depth. Notable filmography: The Volga Boatman (1926) – Revolutionary romance; The Man Who Laughs (1928) – Gothic gypsy; Freaks (1932) – Fatal seductress; A Night in Paradise (1946) – Late cameo as a queen; stage works include Twentieth Century on Broadway.

 

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Bibliography

Brower, R. (1986) Heretics: The Making of Freaks, Tod Browning’s Legendary Freak Show Film. McFarland.

Curti, R. (2015) Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957-1969. McFarland. Available at: https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/italian-gothic-horror-films-1957-1969/ (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Dixon, W.W. (1995) ‘Tod Browning and the Carnival of Freaks’, Senses of Cinema, 12. Available at: https://www.sensesofcinema.com/1995/feature-articles/browning/ (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Everson, W.K. (1994) More Classics of the Horror Film. Citadel Press.

Jensen, O. (2009) Beyond the Freak Show: Freaks and Its Legacy. University Press of Mississippi.

Lenig, S. (2010) Freaks: The Movie and Its Making. McFarland.

Mank, G.W. (1990) Hollywood’s Maddest Doctors: Tod Browning’s Freaks and Other Fright Films. Midnight Marquee Press.

Skal, D.J. (1993) The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror. Faber and Faber.

Tobin, D. (1984) Today’s Exorcist: Tod Browning and the Genesis of Freaks. FantaCo Enterprises.