Freaks: A Film By Tod Browning

By Jack Hunter

FREAKS (1932) is the sensational horror movie that dared to use real-life "human anomalies-in its tale of greed, betrayal and retribution in a travelling carnival. Dwarfs, pinheads, and the limbless are just some of the grotesque figures that provide Tod Browning's seminal work with its unique atmosphere of primal fear and revulsion. This special ebook provides an in-depth history and analysis of this classic cult movie, illustrated by rarely-seen publicity photographs, plus a bonus feature on half-man Johnny Eck, "King of the Freaks'. Also included is the classic horror story "Spurs-by Tod Robbins, which was the main inspiration for the film.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elektron Ebooks
• Release date: Mar 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781908694973

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FREAKS

BY JACK HUNTER

AN EBOOK

ISBN 978-1-908694-97-3

PUBLISHED BY ELEKTRON EBOOKS

COPYRIGHT 2013 ELEKTRON EBOOKS

www.elektron-ebooks.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a database or retrieval system, posted on any internet site, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holders. Any such copyright infringement of this publication may result in civil prosecution

INTRODUCTION : TOD BROWNING

Of all directors working in Hollywood during the 1920s and 30s, one in particular will always be associated with the fairground or travelling carnival and its darker aspects – Tod Browning, who left a remarkable legacy of films set in this sinister milieu. The carnival was in Browning’s blood from an early age; he ran away from home in his teens and joined a travelling show, performing as half of acts called The Lizard and the Crow and The Hypnotic Living Corpse.

His Hollywood apprenticeship began with serving as D.W. Griffith’s assistant on Intolerance (1916), after which he graduated to direct a string of undistinguished comedies and thrillers before meeting up with the actor who would help shape the darker visions to come – the ‘man of a thousand faces’, Lon Chaney. Chaney, who would make his name by playing characters of extreme ugliness or physical impairment, had a remarkable background which might even have provided a storyline for one of Tod Browning’s films.

He was raised by deaf-mute parents; his first wife became alcoholic and burned out her own vocal chords with poison; he then left her for a chorus-girl who was already married to a man with no legs. These experiences were no doubt of great use for Chaney in his first significant screen role, playing a deranged amputee crimelord in Wallace Worsley’s The Penalty (1920). Chaney very quickly made a reputation for himself playing other grotesque, contorted characters, such as the feral, half-simian freak in Worsley’s A Blind Bargain (1922). His first two films with Browning were mediocre, but after Chaney had accomplished his first major screen portrayal of deformity in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1923), the pair made The Unholy Three (1925), a sideshow tale based on the novel Three Freaks by Tod Robbins.

Chaney plays Echo, a larcenous ventriloquist who, bored by the carnival and its paltry rewards, devises a scheme with two of his circus cohorts. Echo dresses up as an old lady to sell ‘talking’ parrots, fooling customers by throwing his voice into their beaks. Any who complain about their silent purchase are visited in person by the ‘old lady’, pushing her baby in a pram before her. Anticipating later uses of freaks or the freakish to parody the nuclear family, this ‘baby’ is in fact a midget (played by Harry Earles), who takes the first opportunity to rob the hapless customers’ homes. The third gang member, a strongman, provides muscle in case anything goes wrong. In the end, this unholy trinity of circus refugees are strangled by an escaped gorilla. With its use of real-life midget Earles, carnival connections and grotesque moments, The Unholy Three was very much a warm-up for Browning’s later, more outré works in that area.

That same year, Lon Chaney would star as the hideously disfigured madman in another horror classic: The Phantom Of The Opera. Next came two more films with Browning, including The Blackbird (1926), in which Chaney once more played a fake cripple; the pair then produced their most extreme entry together yet: The Unknown (1927). For this story, Browning devised for Chaney his most freakish role to date; as he himself said of the film: "When I work on a story for Chaney, I never think of the plot. That writes itself when I know the characters. The Unknown comes simply from the fact that I had an idea about an armless man. So I asked myself what were the most surprising situations and acts which a man as mutilated as that could be involved in. A circus artist who used his feet just as well as his hands, who lost the woman he loved and tried to commit a terrible murder with his toes, that was the result of my speculations." It was just so. The Unknown begins with a circus girl (Joan Crawford),

Reviews for Freaks

[Rj Perales music · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While todd browning's biography gives a much better account of the filming of the film. " Freaks""..... The lengthy section in this book gives insights I to johnny eck......