Freaks and
The Devil Doll

From the inflammatory title to its use of genuine circus "freaks", Tod Browning's classic has a reputation that makes it difficult to view objectively and without preconception. Banned for thirty years, rejected by a horrified studio, rediscovered, vilified and lauded, it has a colourful history that is unlike any other film. Ironically Freaks now stands as one of Browning's most watched work after Dracula (1931) and certainly his most influential (one cannot imagine Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980) were it not for this notorious film). It has lost none of its macabre dread despite being 70 years old and remains a film that many people refuse to watch on the grounds that either it will disturb them or that somehow it is exploitative or morally wrong.

A cursory glance at the plot does little to dispel the myth that this is a sordid gothic tale of horror. Hans, a midget with poor character judgment skills, rejects the advances of his similarly diminutive fiancée Frieda in order to tie the knot with leggy trapeze bimbo Cleopatra. But Cleo hatches a devious plan with hunky strongman Hercules to remove Hans from his substantial inheritance by poisoning him. But their plan is spotted by the other circus performers, who abide by the code "Offend one and you offend them all".

What the plot does not reveal is the film's compassion and its simple honesty in portraying the everyday mundane lives of the circus folk. Indeed the film shies from showing the performances themselves (audiences only appear in the bookending segments of the film), whilst the acts are shown being practiced or in their inception. Browning's affinity with the trappings of the circus (he was a touring player himself) is apparent and lends the proceedings a sense of realism normally avoided in the genre. That said when the freaks enact their terrible revenge, the screen gives full vent to the melodrama of the situation - rainfall, thunder and grotesque shadows of the deformed mob as they slouch their way towards their cowering victims. Freaks rarely strays into the realm of polemic and there are enough shades of grey to allow the characters real depth and credibility. The only characters to whom this doesn't apply are Hercules and Cleopatra (the real freaks of the title) who are defined entirely by their remorseless greed. Virtually everyone else is treated as a real, fleshed out character. This isn't simply black and white, the audience needs to sympathise with the 'freaks' but we must appreciate their capacity to be cruel in the name of their code of honour. That said it remains horrific for precisely these reasons - characters who we have come to sympathise with perpetrate a dreadful and pre-meditated act. Neither does the film result in a simple "freaks=good, normal=bad" scenario as both Phroso the clown and Venus are jolly decent people. Comedy relief comes in the form of suitors to the Siamese twins Violet and Daisy, providing a useful counterpoint to Cleopatra's treacherous courting of Hans. Plot-wise, Freaks may well have been nothing more than a potboiler but its effect as a film is profound. It is not difficult to see why the studios were horrified (for all the wrong reasons) with the finished article - it was commissioned before the Hays Code had really stamped down on creative freedom but completed afterwards.

The Devil-Doll, partly written by Erich von Stroheim, stands as quite one of the most bizarre horror films committed to celluloid and an obvious attraction to Browning with his affinity for the macabre and the disenfranchised. Paul Lavond (Lionel Barrymore) is a man on the run, having escaped from prison following a seventeen year stint for crimes he did not commit. Now he seeks vengeance on the three bankers who framed him. Fortunately the means of exacting his revenge are conveniently at hand. Paul, as fortune would have it, has escaped from prison with a barking mad scientist called Marcel (Henry B. Walthall) who is determined to shrink the world's population in an attempt to prevent famine (he may be mad but at least he means well). When Marcel shuffles off his mortal coil ("perhaps it was for the best") Lavond hotfoots it to Paris to plot his revenge. Needing to remain in disguise, he naturally chooses to dress up as a geriatric female toy maker and topple the three naughty bankers by getting Marcel's miniaturised people to assassinate them with tiny poisoned knives. At least that's the plan...

Lionel Barrymore's transvestite avenger is one of cinema's strangest "monsters". Cold blooded in his search for revenge his aims, while internally justifiable given his unfair treatment, are both cruel and the work of a madman. He doesn't seek simply to murder the three businessmen but to make them suffer and confess to their crimes as well. He is a rational man and strives for justice, albeit the most warped possible. He knows full well that in obtaining it he will fall foul of the law and must remain forever on the run.

The Devil-Doll is horror as opera, a delirious excess of emotion and the grotesque. Expressionistic and grandiose it is the antithesis of realism and far better for it. But it's the special effects used to realise the titular "devil dolls" that make the film such an astonishing tour de force. It's easy to mock in this CGI age (but you'll be laughing on the other side of your face ten years from now when your photorealistic effects look as dated as chest wigs) but the imagination and attention to detail are quite astonishing. Through a combination of matte techniques, multi-sized sets and careful composition, the miniature people come to 'life'. They are handled, they run and hide, they sleep and they can stalk their victims. In one astonishing shot a devil doll climbs down the bars of a baby's cot while the child is sleeping, the doll casting huge shadows on the wall.

Tod Browning's oeuvre is a catalogue of sympathy for the misunderstood and the disenfranchised. In many ways he is a precursor (thematically) to Tim Burton, but his affinity with the macabre and grotesque is more hands-on, more earthy, more working class than Burton's (wonderful) flights of fancy. This BFI-released double bill offers the opportunity to savour an under appreciated cine-auteur in the cinema, which is where the films are meant to be seen. Now if they'd do a companion silent double of London After Midnight (1927) and The Unholy Three (1925) that would go down very nicely indeed, thank you.

Reviewed by Colin Odell and Michele le Blanc