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When he was sixteen years old, Tod Browning mam Zirkus fortgelaf. Technically, it was a traveling show called the Manhattan Fair & Carnival Company, in which he joined after being thrilled with one of his dancers. He has held several jobs at various carnivals, circuses and side shows, including Barker, flight artist, clown, and stallion before a two-year stint as “The Hypnotic Living Corpse.” This act left a dramatic burial of the supposedly dead Browning in a coffin equipped with a concealed ventilation system in a secret compartment, where he kept a stash of malted-milk balls to keep him until he was wonderfully “resurrected” the next day. On special occasions, such as the Easter weekend, the stunt lasted forty hours to benefit from the religious parallels.

These early years provide more than a little useful experience for Browning’s career as a filmmaker. His world was filled with actors, showmen, and hucksters. buried alive has a certain relation to his most famous directorial work, Dracula (1931), but the circus itself and in particular the sideshow remained deeply personal to him and will play an important role in many of his greatest films. Four of his most enduring works, outdoors Draculaare the key examples: the voices and sound versions of The Unholy Three (1925 and 1930), The Unknown (1927), and one of the most famous and controversial films of all time, Freaks (1932).

When it was released in February 1932 (with its Los Angeles premiere a year to the day after) Draculathe gala opening in New York), there were reports of audience members shouting and fainting. Legend has it that a woman sued MGM for the misdemeanor of her baby while watching the movie. Some of these anecdotes may be good publicity, others myth, but there are several factors that we know to be true. Religion and decency groups point to Freaks as a case for its censorship agenda and, according to film historian David J. Skal, called it an “extremely cruel and exploitative film.” It received a number of bad critical notifications and was banned in some countries. But in the show business, all of these things are forgiven. The greatest sense of Freaks was that it lost money for the studio. This along with social and political headaches the film caused MGM to pull the film out of distribution soon after its New York premiere on February 20th.

The controversy seems to be linked to two opposing reasons. On the one hand, some terrifying such physical anomalies were seen on film. Others felt that it was a sign of human purity for the sake of exploitation. The former of these controversies has generally receded, but the latter continues to this day in various forms and by different people. And his provocative title, Freaks, is controversial. It is both exploitative and ironic. It’s like the carnival barker who offers us “to look”, while the film itself asks us to change our perception of what is and is not acceptable, normal, ugly and beautiful. It is noteworthy that this film, which could be lost for various reasons after its release, not only still exists, but still as an important film about horror, cult cinema, screen representation, and the discussion surrounding exploitation and entertainment and the discussion is. .

If you watch the movie now, many may be surprised to find how little of the movie actually qualifies as horror. The first half of Freaks is a look behind the curtain of circus life. It is a document of everyday activities and interactions made interesting by the world in which they take place and the people involved in them. They eat, drink, smoke, fall in love, get married, have children, and live normal home lives. The difference is that they have adapted to the physical limitations with which they were born and lived their whole lives. The poor woman Frances O’Connor for example, is shown having a meal with friends. She uses a fork and drinks from her glass with her feet but there is nothing else unusual about the scene and it is simply portrayed as behavior rather than an “act” or “performance”. In particular, these scenes are very sympathetic to the so-called “freaks”, as they live their daily lives.

The film is a compilation of the largest collection of world-class sideshow acts of the period. Along with eating with her feet as shown in the film, Frances O’Connor was also qualified in crochet and was a sharpshooter. The film shows some actors with microcephaly, then called “Pinheads”, the most famous creatures Schlitziewho was born as a man but presented as a woman in her pioneering work. Prince Randian, known as “The Living Torso” had a very long and successful sideshow career. In the film, he is seen a small piece of his act in which he dissolves a cigarette only with his lips. Cut off from the film is the fact that he also rolled the cigarette himself, even though he had no arms and legs. The most famous artists as they appeared in the film Daisy and Violet Hiltonthe related twins who performed as dancers and musicians at the Vaudeville Circuit.

The back half of Freaks the plot before, which is pretty simple. Hans (Harry Earles), a little person, falls in love with the trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova). Even though she’s in love with Strongman Hercules (Heinrich Victor), Cleo pretends to be in love with Hans after learning that he’s inherited. She marries him and starts her wedding party, slowly forgiving him. The sideshow performance learns from her plot and demands her revenge by fulfilling her promise to make her “one of us”. The two most famous sequences of Freaks happens in this last half of the movie: the wedding banquet and the storm scene.

These two scenes are among the best that Browning has ever filmed, especially during the Sound era. The banquet scene begins with a fire of camaraderie between the freaks as they enjoy each other’s performances. During the party, Cleo is seen pouring poison into Hans’ wine, getting more and more drunk, and continuing with Hercules instead of with her new husband, who is sitting disturbed by her side. Angeleno (Angelo Rossitto), one of the little people of the society, climbs on the table with a huge wine glass in a ceremony to accept Cleo and her trap. “Gooble Gobble, Gooble Gobble, we accept her, we accept her, one of us, one of us,” they sang as they all drank from the lime. Cleo is shocked when Angeleno comes up to her and shouts “You dirty, slimy … FREAKS!” and throws the remaining contents of the calf into his face before storm.

In this scene, the deeper theme of the film is revealed. Those who have marked society as “normal” and “beautiful” are the true monsters of this story, while those who are referred to as “freaks” and “monstrosities” are people of goodness, kindness, and compassion. It’s a theme that has been repeated over the years from Frankenstein to King Kong to Creation of the Black Lagoon and to this day, even explicitly stated in some of the narration by Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar winner for Best Picture, The shape of the water in 2017.

The climatic scene, in which the freaks fill their revenge on Cleo and Hercules, is dynamic and disturbing even now. Everything we have learned from the performers up to this point comes into play and even if we only see the results of their work, what is left to the imagination is far greater than what can possibly be imagined. In the last moments we see Cleo transformed into a deformed “bird woman” who can only cook and shake with her arms, which have been transformed into entfees. The original version is completed here, although it is slightly modified from a longer version, which also contains a revelation that Hercules was emasculated. Most versions of the movie now contain an epilogue that frees Hans from all abuse in the revenge plot and reunites him with Frieda (Daisy Earles), his intended bride from the beginning of the film.

And before Freaks made it to his limited public view, thirty minutes were deleted from his runtime and believed to have been lost. After being pulled out of the distribution, a legend has it that the camera was thrown negatively into San Francisco Bay. Whatever the case, the film went underground for thirty years before being rediscovered and shown in a special screening at the Venice Film Festival in September 1962. From there, he found new life on the Art House circuit. As the film embraces and celebrates being different, the growing counterculture of the era opens up Freaks and it became a cult favorite among the hippie community at midnight performances.

Despite its general canonization as an important film, Freaks remains controversial to this day. While some see it as a sympathetic representation, others see it as pure exploitation. Johnny Eckthe legless man who walks on his hands in the film is often defended Freaks as a great opportunity, an experience that opened doors for him and other performers. Olga Roderick, Bearded lady of the film, was outspoken about her injustice to the film, saying it portrayed sideshow performers respectfully. She regretted that she appeared in the film. At the time of his rediscovery, film journalists called the freaks “compassionate” and “sensitive,” as David J. Skal reported in his indispensable book on the history of the horror show The Monster Show. Skal also discusses the reaction of Montague Addison, “a tattooed dwarf” and sideshow performer, who said in 1971, “while showing sympathy and understanding for a defended minority group,” Freaks actually exploits and degrades us in a way that is hokey as well as offensive.

Until today, Freaks will be discussed further. As with most movies, much of what we get out of it is what we bring through personal experiences, beliefs and attitudes. Whether the film is empathy or exploitation is up to us, the viewers, to decide. That every movie still has the power to provoke after ninety years is something of a miracle. It also shows that as much as the world changes, there are still core issues that we continue to struggle with. All that said, and not to sound hokey or sentimental, perhaps the ultimate lesson is simple: be kind. Treat your fellow human beings the way you would like to be treated. Sitting together at the table and saying “Gooble Gobble, one of us, we accept you” simply to be part of the community of humanity.

At its core, this is perhaps the only thing all of us should take with us Freaks.