This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas.
Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the
month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some scary movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 2: Classic Horror Night“We accept her, we accept her. One of us, one of us. Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble.”
The cult classic horror film Freaks remains as
controversial today as when it was first released in 1932. The film was so
reviled, even by MGM, the studio that produced it, that it effectively killed
the career of director Todd Browning, who only a year before directed the
horror classic Dracula. Browning had directed Dracula for
Universal, so MGM production chief Irving Thalberg wanted him to create a
horror hit for MGM and gave him complete creative freedom. No one expected anything
like Freaks.
It should be made clear upfront that Freaks is a
horror movie because of its murder/revenge plot, not because of its cast of
real-life circus sideshow performers with disabilities. The film opens with a
circus barker introducing a new sideshow “freak.” He explains that she was once
a beautiful trapeze artist, but she violated the code of the “freaks”: offend
one, and you offend them all. The plot centers on Hans (Harry Earles), a
wealthy little person, who becomes totally infatuated with Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), a beautiful trapeze performer. He leaves Frieda, his fiancé, for
Cleopatra, who is only interested in his money. In fact, she plots with the circus
strongman, Hercules, to kill Hans. When Hans becomes suspiciously ill
immediately after the wedding, his fellow sideshow performers plot revenge
against Cleopatra and Hercules.
Though Freaks is a Pre-Code film (made before movies
were subject to extremely strict, puritanical censorship), 30 minutes of footage
was ordered cut by MGM studio head Louis B, Mayer, who hated the film, leaving
the final runtime at just over an hour. Some of the scenes cut were deemed too
shocking or disturbing, like the fate of the strongman, who is castrated and
becomes part of the sideshow as a soprano singer. No one knows for sure the
content of the rest of the cut scenes, but it is likely they were just more
scenes of the lives of the sideshow performers. As it is, most of Freaks
focuses on the close-knit sideshow community, with the murder/revenge plot
kicking in only in the final act.
It may be only an hour long, but Freaks takes its
time building characters and giving them inner lives. We spend a little time
with each member of the sideshow, allowing some to show off their act. The most
memorable act has to Randion “The Living Torso” lighting his own cigarette despite
not having any limbs. The conjoined twins Violet and Daisy get along well, but
Daisy’s fiancé and Violet do not, leading to some amusing moments. The most
famous scene from Freaks is their tradition of “The Loving Cup.” After
Hans and Cleopatra’s wedding, the sideshow members take turns drinking champagne
from a large bowl while chanting “We accept her, we accept her.” When it is
Cleopatra’s turn to drink from the bowl she reveals her true nature and disgust
for them.
This was likely the first time that people with disabilities
were actually cast in a Hollywood production. Some of the performers later
expressed regret at being in the movie or ended up hating the film. Unfortunately,
during production the disabled performers were treated nearly as poorly as
their characters in the movie. Wallace Ford as Phroso the clown and Leila Heims
as Venus the seal trainer, the only able-bodied circus performers that are kind
to the sideshow performers, received top billing though they are more
supporting players. Worst of all, the disabled performers were not allowed to
eat at the studio cafeteria since their appearance might upset the other MGM
staff, so they had to eat outside under a tent set up just for them.
Freaks will likely always be controversial—does it have
sympathy for its subjects throughout, or does it squander that sympathy by having
them be violent and vengeful? The final scene seems like it was tacked on as an
attempt to give the movie a happy ending. It only half works. This is a dark
film but also a very interesting one deserving of classic status.
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