Warner
Home Video
| Review
by Rob Gillaspie
At
the tender age of sixteen, Tod Browning
fell in love with a young dancer and ran
away to join the circus. He spent the next
several years traveling the country as a
clown and a sideshow barker. The inner mechanisms
of circus life proved a perfect match for
Browning's slanted view of the world, and
it seemed he had found his true calling...
until a chance meeting with DW Griffith
introduced him to Hollywood and set him
along the path to cinematic history.
Browning got his start as
an assistant director for Griffith on 1916's
INTOLERANCE. He quickly moved on to helm
his own productions, carving a name for
himself as a highly prolific filmmaker.
By 1930 he had more than forty pictures
under his belt and was a prominent figure
in the world of silent film. When the studio
offered him a chance to direct his first
"talkie," he already had a script
in mind: an adaptation of Bram Stoker's
gothic opus, Dracula.
DRACULA was originally intended
as a starring vehicle for Lon Chaney, who
collaborated with Browning on such films
as THE UNHOLY THREE and the unfinished LONDON
AFTER MIDNIGHT. When Chaney died of cancer
during preproduction, Browning was forced
to look elsewhere for a leading man. He
decided to take a chance on dashing Hungarian
stage star Bela Lugosi, and as anyone with
half a brain knows, his casting crapshoot
became the stuff of movie legend. DRACULA
triggered a landslide of big-screen creature
features; titles like FRANKENSTEIN and THE
MUMMY became staples in our nation's pop-culture
vernacular. Before long, the heat was on
Browning to produce a suitable follow up
to his monstrous masterpiece.
The result of his efforts
was a movie called FREAKS, and it would
go on to become one of the most revered
and reviled films of all time.
Inspired by the Tod Robbins
short story Spurs, Browning drew
heavily upon his own experiences under the
big top to craft a brooding tale of revenge
and melodrama set in the world of a traveling
sideshow. He scoured the world to assemble
his cast of true-life oddities, amassing
the largest collection of pinheads, geeks,
half-men and hermaphrodites ever to appear
on screen. Needless to say, the viewing
public wasn't prepared for Browning's assault
on their senses. FREAKS was fingered as
a societal boogeyman, shouldering the blame
for everything from juvenile delinquency
to inducing miscarriages. It seemed that
Browning had succeeded in creating what
he referred to as, "The ULTIMATE Horror
Film."
FREAKS tells the story of
Cleopatra, a cruel and beautiful trapeze
artist. At the urging of her lover, the
brutish strongman Hercules, she plots to
seduce and murder Hans, the wealthiest member
of Madame Tetrallini's Traveling Freak Show.
Hypnotized by her charms, Hans falls madly
in love with Cleopatra. He and his fellow
misfits are overjoyed that a so-called "normal"
person would accept one of them as an equal.
But when Cleopatra's treachery comes to
light, the stage is set for her ultimate
undoing, and what began as a lighthearted
tribute to sideshow life is rapidly eclipsed
by shadows and mounting dread. The final
act remains one of the most unsettling sequences
ever put to film.
FREAKS was, undoubtedly, the
most scandalous picture of its time. It
appalled audiences and critics alike with
its startling imagery and bleak comment
on the nature of humanity. Many states demanded
extensive cuts be made to the picture, and
some refused to show it at all. After a
disastrous New York screening in 1932, the
film was pulled from circulation and passed
off to various traveling road shows. In
Europe, the film was banned outright for
more than thirty years. Browning's career
was as good as over; after spitting out
a handful of mostly forgettable pictures,
he retired to Malibu, where he spent the
next three decades slowly drinking himself
to death.
In the 1960's, FREAKS was
rediscovered by the counterculture movement.
Championed by fringe icon Anton LaVey, the
film quickly gained a second life on the
underground circuit. Since then, various
cuts of the movie have been available to
the public, usually marred by poor sound
quality and inconsistent editing. Now, with
the recent release of FREAKS on DVD, fans
of this classic can finally enjoy the film
the way it was meant to be seen.
Warner has taken great pains
to restore both image and sound quality,
and although portions of the film have been
lost to the ages, what remains on screen
stands up remarkably to the test of time.
I was a little disappointed that the studio
opted to go with the tacked-on "happy"
ending for this version, but the disc offers
a peek at all three "alternate"
endings to satisfy those of us with an eye
for the bigger picture.
Also included is a brief documentary
detailing the lives of Browning and his
featured performers, as well as a commentary
track by horror historian David J. Skal.
Perhaps the greatest addition to this DVD
is the inclusion of the long-lost "Special
Message Prologue," which Browning crafted
as a mood-setter for his film. The "Prologue"
was screened ONCE, at the movie's initial
premiere, and was immediately cut as the
studio struggled to conform FREAKS to an
already diminishing time frame. Its return
is a fitting reward to all the fans who
have kept FREAKS alive for so many years
– and to Browning, whose dark lens
on the world continues to influence horror
filmmakers to this day.
