Dracula director Tod Browning’s banned horror masterpiece gets a re-release.

By the time director Browning made Freaks in 1932, he already had a string of box office hits behind him. Morbid melodramas like The Unholy Three (1925) and The Unknown (1927), about a man who cuts off his own arms because his girlfriend hates hugging. But it was his classic version Dracula in 1931 that finally persuaded MGM studios to give the director free reign with his big-top shocker Freaks.

The story of a band of sideshow grotesques who mutilate a showgirl when she cons a midget, the production seemed cursed from the outset. Browning’s real-life cast was inspiring revulsion in everyone who met them, including the patrons of the studio canteen, and, after much haggling, it was eventually agreed that only midget Harry Earles and Siamese twins The Hiltons would be allowed to eat with studio staff.

Browning, meanwhile, was suffering on set, drinking heavily and being plagued by recurring nightmares about the legless Johnny Eck and pinhead Schlitze dragging a dead cow backwards through a doorway.

By the time shooting ended, the director was exhausted and totally unprepared for the bad reaction to the film. Even after four days of reshoots, the US censors still insisted that a further 30 minutes be cut. Britain banned it completely while American cinemas, desperate for sales, offered badges of the cast to anyone who bought a ticket. No one was tempted.

Undaunted, Browning ploughed on and made The Devil-Doll soon after, a surreal tale of a cross-dressing ex-convict who shrinks people then turns them into sadistic killers. It was mangled by the censors. Browning was incensed and only directed one more film, the feeble Miracles For Sale, three years later.

For a while it seemed as if Freaks would disappear along with its director. However, following a brief spell as an “adult attraction” in the late 30s, it eventually resurfaced as a curiosity at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962 – the same year Browning died. Twenty years later it was bought by Anton LaVey, founder of the Church Of Satan. Enjoy.JC 26 September 02

Freaks and The Devil-Doll, released 27 September 02 at selected cinemas.
Dracula released on DVD 14 October 02.