Tod Browning's Sideshow Shockers

Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers

Director ~ Tod Browning

 

The Unknown

Writers ~ Tod Browning, Waldemar Young, Joseph Farnham

1927, US

Stars ~ Lon Chaney, Norman Kerry, Joan Crawford

 

The Mystic

Writers ~ Tod Brownin, Waldemar Young

1925, US

Stars ~ Aileen Pringle, Conway Tearle, Mitchell Lewis

 

Freaks

Writers ~  Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon

from the short story ‘Spurs’ by Clarence Aaron 'Tod' Robbins

1932, US

Stars ~ Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova

 

 

These three Tod Browning classics are crime narratives set in the circus world, but there is the definite feel of perversion, of something transgressive: a prelude to extreme horror by inference alone. Packaged together, their vibrancy and edge remain and it is easy to see how they influence still.

 

‘The Mystic’ is the least twisted of the three films, leaning more on the con job and crime element that underpins all three films. The behind-the-scenes tell-all story demonstrating how the séance fraud is carried out proves the central hook. Themes of deception go hand-in-hand with slight-of-hand and a twinge of class conflict. Browning foregrounds outsiders, dresses up Aileen Pringle in splendid dresses by uncredited Erté and André-ani, sets up unforgettable séance sequences and delighting in their artifice and deconstruction. The conflict is ethical rather than romantic, although admittedly Nash (Conway Tearle) has an existential crisis because he has feelings for his scam victim, Doris (Gladys Hulette). Zara (a livewire Pringle) represents a cultural and lifestyle rather than a romantic opposition.

  

But what makes this release distinctive is the foley work that accentuates some of the action throughout – doors closing, laughter, paper rustling. Droney, industrial and throbbing with organ, this 2023 score is the work of Dean Hurley, and it comes as no surprise that he was a David Lynch collaborator.

 

 

 

‘The Unknown’ especially, is full of trauma, manipulations, castration anxieties, and sheer oddness that you wonder if the somewhat crazed ending may well trip over into Grand Guignol gore: it certainly feels bold enough. The broader strokes are totally simpatico with the sideshow melodrama: a crook on the run is posing as an armless knife-throwing performer but falls for a woman that can’t tolerate being touched. And that’s a young Joan Crawford! As Alonzo, seemingly armless and having learnt to do all with his feet, Lon Chaney exhibits wonderfully full-blooded silent movie reactions, especially when he learns he has made a great sacrifice for the object of his desire to no reward. Chaney’s reaction shots and a melodramatic story positively bursting with trauma and perversity is another example of how the reputation of silent films as a repressed and quaint product is misplaced. It may not be explicit, but it’s all there.

 

 

 

‘Freaks’ is the one you probably bought the set for, although for me it was ‘The Unknown’ that proved the revelation. There’s a lot of misreading and ambiguity in the horror of Browning’s most notorious film. With the famous “One of Us!” sequence plainly being an initiation of Cleopatra as one of their own via her marriage to Hans. Yet the chant is often recited and misremembered in popular culture as sinister: the full chant is, “We accept her! One of us!”, but viewed through Cleopatra’s disgust, it takes on a horrified and horror sheen. The circus folk don’t look down on the pairing or disparage them in any way, it’s a celebration, an open declaration of acceptance from a closed, disparaged community. The ending would seem like a justified revenge narrative but as it’s filtered through storms and shadowy malevolence, it feels more a horror set piece: anyone would be malevolent when filmed this way. As follows, Browning has only himself to blame for misinterpretation and that the final reveal somehow makes Cleopatra feel a bit of a victim.

 

It’s Cleopatra’s cruelty that seals her fate via actions that are a bit more eye-for-an-eye than audiences were ready for at the time. Arguably, Freaks is not a horror show, despite its form of justice; rather, it’s a drama about acceptance and love and what happens when someone tries to take advantage of a group they see as inferior.”

  https://elementsofmadness.com/2023/10/17/sideshowshockers-hv/

 

There is no doubt that Browning has a lot of empathy and affection for the carnival folk, but in each film it is the “other” that is not to be trusted, are predatory and/or dangerous: the swindlers in ‘The Mystic’ are gypsies; Alonzo in ‘The Unknown’ has the mutation of an extra thumb; the folk of ‘Freaks’ are not physically typical. You can grow in sympathy as Browning allows these particular people agencies, but their otherness and your discomfort at them is also validated. There is definitely some of the murky morality and sideshow exploitation at work here, and yet Browning manages to avoid outright crudity. The film’s success is in showing the normalcy of the lives of the circus folk: there are no scenes that subject them to condescension or ridicule, and in that way it is not exploitational and definitely ahead of its time in representation.

 

 

 

The year before ‘Freaks’, Browning had made ‘Dracula’ with Legosi, securing a one-two punch for his status in the Horror legends list. Or, as IMBD trivia has it, “He has directed two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Dracula (1931) and Freaks (1932).” ‘Freaks’ even has the distinction of being banned in the UK for thirty-plus years, giving it additional horror bona fides. There’s the legend that a woman miscarried whilst watching it, which is also the kind of thing a horror’s reputation enjoys. It is also associated with lost footage, studio interference and credited with destroying Browning’s subsequent career, even with ‘Dracula’ to his name. All of this gives it considerable notoriety but, unlike Browning’s lost ‘London After Midnight’, we can see that ‘Freaks’ still maintains a raw power and unique milieu that secures its place in cinematic and genre history.

 "Daring! Beautiful! Sensational!", indeed. 

 

 

"Tropic of Ghosts" ~ album by Buck Theorem

 "Tropic of Ghosts"

 Hot with longing, warnings and dreaming when laying in the heat of elegies.

This one is concept ambient with the diversion into occasional rhythm.  All about world worries, simple desire and ever-present grief. 

 It is fronted by a miniature "Ghost on a Tropical Island", made by Dimuth Fernando (@www.instagram.com/gallery4.20/).

 

Superman

 

Superman

Writer + Director ~ James Gunn

Writers ~ James Gunn

Superman created by ~ Jerry Siegel Joe Shuster

2025, USA

Stars ~ David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult

   

No origin story here. In fact, there could have been one or two prequels before this point, detailing Lex Luther’s growing grudges and plans, Clark Kent and Lois Lane’s  (Rachel Brosnahan) romance and revelations, even the kidnapping and coercion of Metamorpho. Instead, Gunn wastes no time dropping us in midway through a fight that Superman has lost. In fact, the film spends a lot of time and is pretty good at making Superman vulnerable-adjacent. The first images we see of him is beaten and dabbed bloody. David Corenswet as Superman-Clark may have the looks and disarming charm, but where he doesn’t have the extra smooth cocksuredness of Christopher Reeve, he has a Twenty-First Century “I’m just doing my best”.

Mostly, it is obvious everyone is having a ball. There is an unmistakable party vibe to Gunn’s superhero romps, even as laced with darkness as they are. Actually, ‘Superman’ is markedly lighter than his earlier imaginings, deliberately brighter and positive in tone whilst still having a little time for the horror of war and vulnerability.  Superman can be, as ever with superheroes, accused of fascistic and imperialistic dogma, but I tend to see superheroes as a wish-fullfilment for the disenfranchised. As Superman was created by two Jewish nerds in the late Nineteen-thirties, how else were they going to punch Nazis? There’s room in the film for debate in how Kal-El’s good deed-doing is just as dogmatic and potentially blinkered as his opponents accuse, because there’s self-awareness; even The Justice Gang's more mercenary nature keeps his ethos questioned. We have Homelander and Omni Man to express our distrust and deconstruction of an invincible paragon. But ultimately it chooses Superman as the myth that we need – even with flags.

Gunn unashamedly posits super-heroes as a force for good to call on in warzones whilst the bad guy is a money mogul destroying the world from his own pettiness. Lex Luther (Nicholas Hoult) is obviously modelled on the Elon Musk type, rich beyond imagination and unable to placate his own ego, playing at war and interdimensional black sites for his own perceived grudges. The analogies can’t be missed and pleasingly roused the wrath of the anti-woke types who have no understanding of the character’s origins and meaning. It’s not subtle. But there is again attention to the casting to give Luther’s team flickers of individuality, cheering on his success at besting Superman as they might a pal’s game-playing, elevating them above just mindless minions.   

Gunn is here for the comics fans that already know their stuff, and everyone else will catch up quickly. Fan service is satisfied by taking namechecking John Williams’ original score, by utilising lesser-known characters – Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) is fearsome with that battlecry, Mr Terrific (Edi Gathegi, very cool and beguiling facial markings; Fantastic was taken) – as well as taking serious-ish the absurdities – scene-stealing Krypto the superdog, Metamorpho (an emotionally pained Anthony Carrigan), Guy Gardener (Nathan Fillion; Gunn loves a lunkheaded, slightly misguided but ultimately good hero). As underwritten as Hawkgirl and Metamorpho may be, there’s the feeling that there’s other films happening with them elsewhere, that they have fuller stories that we’re not seeing (oh, Metamorpho has a family?). Gunn will make room for kaijus, and pocket universe black sites too but he knows how to root in the small stuff. The early Lane-Superman interview is where the film truly locks in after leading with the super-stuff. And in terms of giving and sidestepping a lot of exposition, the scene where Lois goes to the Justice Gang for help only to have Gardner spill the beans on Superman’s secrets is a masterclass, conveying so much under the guise of a funny interaction and goes down so smoothly you hardly realise the work it’s doing. Or he’ll make sure the Justice Gang is battling an interdimensional being while Clark and Lois are having a heart-to-heart.

Typical of Gunn, ‘Superman’ is overstuffed but always fun and light on its feet. It cracks along at a breathless pace, offering new details right until the very end (red suns make you drunk!). It is daft and heartfelt, committed, and lands its humanitarian anti-ego message with an almost naïve clarity totally befitting its hero. Perhaps it’s not up with the top-tier superhero flicks, but it’s colourful pell-mell entertainment and certainly demonstrates that a desaturated palette is not needed to get your points across.