Friendship and Human Decency in Tod Browning's "Freaks"

Tod Browning's "Freaks" (1932) is often characterized as a horror film, but I have never really thought of it as such.  I think of it more as a tragic melodrama than a film depicting out-and-out horror.  To characterize it as such would be giving short shrift to the circus personnel depicted in the film who were born with physical deformities.  Browning goes to great lengths to dramatize a diverse group of people, who possess separate and distinct personalities, with such warmth and compassion that there is nothing in the film that should be considered truly horrifying from the traditional perspective.  One of the most daring films ever to come out of the classic Hollywood studio system, "Freaks" is better characterized as a parable about the moral corruption of specific individuals who are out to exploit those they perceive to be weak, and about underestimating the strength and resolve of those allegedly weak people who are forced to live on the fringes of society because of the lack of compassion and acceptance of them.  What I like so much about the movie is the fact that Browning doesn't romanticize the physically deformed circus personnel who form the backbone of "Freaks."  Rather than portraying them as individuals with an unrealistically higher moral compass and perspective who "turn the other cheek" whenever they are put-upon, Browning portrays them as people who are capable of the same sense of righteous justice and vengeance as the rest of society.  Browning doesn't condescend to them by implying they are somehow more humble and superior to the other characters.  He doesn't look at them with a sense of false nobility the way other filmmakers might have.  As such, they are no better or worse than everybody else, but ultimately prove that they have the same hopes, dreams, desires, flaws, and capability for rage and anger as everyone else.

"Freaks" tells the story of the denizens who are employed by Madame Tetrallini's (Rose Dione) traveling circus and carnival.  The conniving and insincere circus high-wire performer, Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) has been flirting with Hans (Harry Earles), one of the little people performing in the circus.  This dismays Hans' sweet fiancee, Frieda (Daisy Earles) who is also Hans' size and who feels threatened by Cleopatra's interest in her boyfriend.  When Frieda inadvertently spills the beans to Cleopatra about Hans' sizable inheritance, Cleopatra conspires with her lover, the brutish, hunky circus muscleman Hercules (Henry Victor) to manipulate Hans into marrying Cleopatra and poison him for his money.  As Hans grows weaker and weaker due to being poisoned, circus seal trainer Venus (Leila Hyams) confronts Hercules with her suspicions about what he and Cleopatra are doing to Hans.  Venus warns Hercules to leave Hans alone, or she'll go straight to the authorities.  On the night of a freak thunderstorm, Hans and his fellow circus friends confront Cleopatra with their knowledge of her nefarious deeds.  Hercules attempts to do away with Venus, but she is rescued by good-guy circus clown Phroso (Wallace Ford), as the rest of the physically deformed circus performers close in on Hercules and do away with him.  Cleopatra runs screaming through the forest during the rainstorm, pursued by the rest of the circus personnel.  The movie ends some time later, with Cleopatra now part of the circus sideshow act, as a deformed "duck woman" with no legs and making duck-like sounds.  Meanwhile, Phroso and Venus help reunite Freida with a reclusive Hans.

A simplistic reading of "Freaks" would have you believe that all the physically "normal" people of the film are corrupt and evil, while the physically deformed characters are completely pure and flawless individuals.  It's not as simple as that.  It's true that Browning is calling attention to individuals like Cleopatra or Hercules who would exploit, mock, or condescend to people who are different from them, but the movie takes great pains to underscore that they are the exceptions, not the rule, to society.  What's often forgotten is that we see depictions of so-called "normal" people who demonstrate respect and compassion to people who are different from them.  At the outset of the film, there's a sequence where Jean (Michael Visaroff), the ignorant gatekeeper on a private property where the circus personnel are playing, orders them off the premises and insults their physical appearance.  Madame Tetrallini explains to Jean's employer, property owner Monsieur Duval (Albert Conti) that they are simply children who work for her circus.  Jean scoffs, but Duval calms his employee down and tells them they are welcome to remain on his property.  Madame Tetrallini and her personnel thank Duval for being a gentleman and showing dignity and respect to them.  As Duval and Jean leave, Madame Tetrallini tellingly scolds her circus performers by saying "Oh, shame, shame, shame!  How many times have I told you not to be frightened?  Have I not told you that God looks after all his children?"  In so doing, Madame Tetrallini demonstrates how she holds the circus performers with physical deformities up to the same standards as everyone else in the world.  Even though she looks out for them, like she would for any human being under her employ, she also wants them to learn how to take care of themselves and her statement demonstrates how she tries not to bestow preferential treatment upon them over anyone else.  Madame Tetrallini demonstrates respect, not pity, for them.

Other major characters in "Freaks" who are often short-shrifted in serious discussions of the film are circus clown Phroso (Wallace Ford), beautiful seal trainer Venus (Leila Hyams) and another clown named Roscoe (Roscoe Ates).  They do not have any physical deformities and yet treat those in the circus who do as equals and genuine friends.  Roscoe is even married to one of the Siamese twins Daisy (Daisy Hilton) and often bickers with Daisy's sister Violet (Violet Hilton) because of what he perceives to be Violet's bad influence upon his wife.  As such Roscoe demonstrates how he doesn't treat the ones with physical deformities differently than anyone else.  Phroso is generally an all-around good guy who is friends with everyone and is concerned for their well-being.  He is genuinely excited and happy when the bearded lady gives birth to a baby, and even fawns over Schlitzie, a circus performer born with microcephaly, by complimenting her on her dress.  Wallace Ford's innate warmth as an actor is put to good use in this touching scene.  Phroso's kindness to Schlitzie elicits a warm reaction from Venus, who appears deeply moved by Phroso's interaction with Schlitzie.

 
Venus herself proves to be a good confidante for Frieda when she fears Hans is slipping away from her to Cleopatra.  The scene in which Venus provides moral support to Frieda is one of the best in the movie, and demonstrates how Venus and Frieda's romantic issues with Phroso and Hans are given equal weight in the movie.  Venus is also the one who confronts Hercules with her suspicions that he and Cleopatra are plotting to kill Hans for his money.  At the end of the movie, Phroso and Venus help reunite Frieda with Hans and are sensitive enough to let them have time to themselves to work out the issues in their relationship stemming from what happened earlier with Hans' marriage to Cleopatra and its disasterous consequences.  It's appropriate that the kind Phroso and Venus would also end up with each other, as their warmth and compassion for others are a good complement.  In "Freaks," people like Madame Tetrallini, Monsieur Duval, Phroso, Venus and Roscoe join with the circus personnel with physical deformities to represent the status-quo of society.  People like Cleopatra, Hercules, and the groundskeeper Jean, who have no compassion for others different from themselves, are the ones who represent the so-called "Freaks" of society due to their lack of integrity, empathy and caring.  In so doing, Browning does not color the world of the characters in "Freaks" in mere black and white, but in refreshingly complex shades of grey.  I don't think that Browning cynically believed that all of society was intolerant, just a significant minority, and that most individuals have the capacity to care about people different from them.  That's why "Freaks" is the ultimate metaphor of the challenges that a diverse society faces when people of different races, religions, ethnic groups, physical conditions, and sexual orientations try to live in harmony with one another.

One of the great tragedies of cinema is the fact that MGM cut "Freaks" down from its original 90 minute running time, after disasterous preview screenings where people reacted negatively to it, to its current running time of just over one hour.  The nearly 30 minutes of footage has been lost and horror movie fans have been imagining what the movie would have been like if it had not been significantly altered.  As it turns out, according to a website that synopsizes the original script found in the MGM archives, much of the footage concerned Venus and Phroso's developing relationship; more scenes with Madame Tetrallini; Cleopatra attempting to flirt with Phroso; Venus stumbling onto more evidence concerning Cleopatra and Hercules' murderous plot against Hans; and the original ending of the movie with the revelation that Hercules is still alive and part of Madame Tetrallini's act, singing falsetto after having been castrated by the circus performers.  It's a shame that this footage was lost because it would have helped to further deepen the already-complex storylines and relationships among the various circus personnel even more than what is depicted in the final cut of the film.  Perhaps the lost footage would be disappointing to horror film fans expecting more "horrific" content, but reading about it makes me both sad and excited at how even greater "Freaks" could have been had movie audiences back in 1932 been more receptive to its daring and unique characters and storyline.  In some ways, the intolerance that "Freaks" suffered at the hands of MGM executives and by moviegoers at the time of its original release is an appropriate metaphor for the kind of intolerance that its protagonists faced both on-screen in the movie's storyline, and in real-life. 

The Shrewd, "Street Smart" Ann Rutherford

Noah called her back sooner than we expected.

I am referencing a running joke that the late actress, and my friend, Ann Rutherford always made about her incredible vitality and longevity.  She often joked that she came over with Noah on the Ark and that, until Noah called for her to come home, she intended to live life to the fullest, but that she didn't expect him to come calling for her for another 30 years, at least!  Unfortunately, for the rest of us, 30 years came too quickly.  She passed away on Monday at age 91. 

As you may have already read from most of her obituaries, Ann Rutherford was a contract player at MGM and 20^th Century-Fox in the 1930s and 1940s.  She was best known for playing Polly Benedict in a dozen entries of the “Andy Hardy” series opposite Mickey Rooney, as well as playing Careen O’Hara, Scarlett’s kind and level-headed younger sister, in “Gone with the Wind” (1939).  I became friends with Ann while researching  a book I am still working on about the Hollywood Canteen during WWII.  It was a servicemen's nightclub where the movie stars of the era entertained and danced with military personnel who were in Los Angeles before being deployed overseas.  Ann was listed on Wikipedia as one of the movie stars who entertained there.  So I wrote to her to ask if I could interview her about it.  She called me on the phone after she received my letter.  It turns out Wikipedia was wrong (surprise, surprise!), she did not volunteer at the Canteen.  But she did extensively tour the country selling War bonds and visiting military installations to entertain the troops.  I still interviewed her because I felt her anecdotes about selling War bonds and visiting military installations would be relevant, and they were.  She had great anecdotes and insights about WWII and how Hollywood responded to the war effort.  We stayed good friends as a result.  She introduced me to her friends such as Anne Jeffreys, Joan Leslie, and Faye McKenzie who I also interviewed about their WWII memories volunteering at the Canteen.  I would look her up when I visited Los Angeles, and I spent time with her when she was visiting the Williamsburg Film Festival in the Spring of 2011, and we talked on the phone frequently.  When I think of it now, it amazes me how we became fast friends and she was just an incredibly positive, encouraging person.

Many of the write-ups and obituaries, I am happy to say, are very respectful, but only one managed to capture what I feel was the essence of Ann Rutherford.  In Adam Bernstein’s well-researched and well-written essay on Ann in the June 13, 2012 issue of the  Washington Post, Bernstein cites her business acumen and shrewdness in dealing with the studio bosses at MGM.  Bernstein hits the nail right on the head.  She was an incredibly intelligent and shrewd person, and her native street smarts allowed her to survive and thrive in the jungle known as Hollywood.  She never suffered fools gladly and knew how to take care of herself and her finances (which many actors and actresses, I am sorry to say, do not know how to do).  I learned a lot from her about being a business professional, and how one must diligently explore all opportunities that are presented to them in life.  She told me how, between making movies at MGM, she would do magazine and newspaper interviews and radio shows because she realized that doing publicity was important in helping to maintain a career.  She felt networking was as important, if not more so, than the actual work as an actress because she realized that, if people don't know who you are, they won't pay money to see you in a movie. 

She was never pretentious and never copped an "artsy" attitude as an actress, even though she did a lot of fine work and was as accomplished an actress as any of her peers—she worked in theatre, movies, radio and television during her career.  She had no patience for pretentious “thespians” who thought they were too good for Hollywood or the responsibilities that came with working in the movies.  (Believe you me, there are plenty of them and I can think of one particular pretentious actress, for example…but I’ll save that for another time!)  I think Ann lacked any sort of pretentions because she knew how fortunate she was to have broken into the business and she wasn’t hindered by false pride and false humility the way other actors and actresses, who openly disdained the dictates of the classic Hollywood studio system, were.  Having been brought up during the Great Depression and living through WWII, Ann never had a sense of entitlement or elitism.  She knew that striving for success was what regular people hoped to achieve for themselves, and was nothing to be ashamed of.  I think she felt that everybody owed it to themselves to fulfill their goals and aspirations, no matter what it was.  This had to do with the fact that she never lost touch with the "common man."  As far as she was concerned, she was part of the "common folk" and never pretended to be better than they were. 

There's a story she told that took place when she was a young teenager.  She and a bunch of kids in the neighborhood built a boat and sailed to Catalina.  She had packed sandwiches for lunch and when they were far from shore, the calking of the boat came loose because it hadn't dried, and the boat started sinking and capsized.  She remembered seeing her sandwiches unwrapping from their paper and sinking to the bottom of the ocean.  She and her friends clung to the side of the boat until she saw a ship from far in the distance.  It was the USS Arizona, and its crew spotted her and her friends and rescued them and later, towed their little boat back to shore.  Years later, when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor occurred, she was deeply affected because that ship had saved her life.  But she told the story very matter-of-factly, with very little drama or emotion, and I think her calm reaction to that day reflects her survival instincts were already intact from an early age.

Ann appreciated the fan letters and interest in her career, especially when it came to discussing "Gone with the Wind."  She was indeed deeply proud of "The Wind," as she would call it, and felt like she was both the book and the movie's cultural ambassador at times.  But, even though she had a healthy appreciation for her past, she lived very much in the present.  She was always active, going out to social events, seeing friends, traveling, staying engaged in the world.  (Ann would always joke about “going dancing in the streets together!” whenever she described planning a get-together with any of her friends.)  At her home, there were no mementos from her career displayed anywhere, just photos of her family and friends in the living room.  She valued the close relationship she had with her daughter Gloria, her grandsons, and her stepdaughter Debbie.  She told me once that she got married and started a family after Louis B. Mayer sold her MGM contract to 20^th Century-Fox, where she was miserable.  She found the atmosphere at Fox to be oppressive, and studio head Darryl Zanuck did nothing for her career—he cast her in thankless roles in B movies, and loaned her out constantly to other studios.  She decided that, since she had little control over the direction of her movie career, it was time for her to focus on her personal life.  This was a woman who always made proactive choices in her life. 

Her best friend was actress Anne Jeffreys.  The two were inseparable and were great fun to be around.  They often traveled together, went to shows and premieres in town together, and always made sure they were color-coordinated in the elegant clothes and fashions they wore to events.  But, most importantly, they really looked out for each other and cared deeply for one another.  It is appropriate that Jeffreys was the one who was by Ann’s bedside when she passed away at home on Monday.  I am glad Jeffreys was there for Ann at the end. 

Turner Classic Movies plans to honor Ann on July 3^rd with a 10-movie marathon that day.  It climaxes that evening with an airing of “Gone with the Wind.”  I think Ann would have appreciated that.  She once told me that all she ever wanted was to work in this wonderful industry—Hollywood--that had allowed her to be a part of it, and not take anything away from anybody.  The evidence indicates she accomplished all of that and much, much more.