Director Tod Browning Holds Better
Thinking Requisite to His Trade
The Oakland Tribune, Jan. 10, 1932
By WOOD SOANES
TOD BROWNING was "at home" the day I decided to visit him at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, which was not only a lucky break for the Interviewer but a distinct novelty for the director.
For Browning was at that particular time in the throes of creation on the matter of "
Freaks" and, as a rule, when this MGM ace, who specializes in macabre productions, is plotting out a picture, he is not in his office at all.
Instead one may find him perched on a red fire hydrant located in one of the busier sectors of the lot. They call it the Browning hydrant, just as they call that bit of transplanted jungle in which some of the major scenes of "The Cuban Love Song" were filmed, the Browning river. And when Browning is atop his favorite hydrant, it is not good policy to disturb him.
Everyone from truck drivers and executives to press agents and extra folks respect his public privacy. The office that the studio has provided for him is one of the more spacious cubicles consisting of two compartments, but it is devoid of conventional furnishings. In the outer anteroom is Browning's secretary, whose chore it is to keep track of his migrations and shoo pests away from the screen door. In the inner sanctum is a huge globe with all the trimmings for measuring distance and location; a shelf full of books on travel, occult, biographical and scientific subjects; one easy chair of the sprawling sort; one slightly more
conventional; and a third that classifies as a straight chair.
The first thing the visitor notices about the room is that it has no desk, and therein is the key to Browning's character and the secret of his success as a director. Nearly every other director in Hollywood not only has a desk but has it cluttered up with papers. Browning argues that the best place to keep a story is in your head until it is fully completed. Then it is a simple matter to dictate the yarn to a stenographer, thus conserving time and energy.
Willis Goldbeck was closeted with Browning on the morning in question, had been with him for four consecutive working days — days that, Browning revealed, had been consumed chiefly by argument. It is Goldbeck's chore to argue with 'Browning, to act as audience for his ideas, to offer plot suggestions, and when the battle is over to assemble the material for the final draft of the story. He is, incidentally, one of the few writers who can work with the director.
It isn't, intimates of Browning explained to me, that he is the traditional temperamental director, but that he requires an aide who will know when to apply either sugar or spurs, who can sense the moment for debate or acquiescence. Goldbeck through long acquaintance with Browning and his moods is able to do this in a practically painless fashion so that both he and the director emerge from the joust hale, hearty and friendly, and the picture usually emerges as something of moment.
"We've been trying to get one scene fixed for four days," Browning began after the introductions, "and I'm not sure we have it now. This picture will not be in the usual run and I am having many problems with it. I have the story well in mind but it just doesn't seem to jell when translated into camera and microphone terms. I don't want to tell just another circus story, I want to tell one with a different slant.
"Up to now the freaks in the circus have been treated simply as freaks in literature and on the screen. Most of them are abnormal physically, it is true, yet my inquiry has proved to me that most of them are the same as you and I. In this picture — and I believe we'll call it 'Freaks' — I'm trying to get not only behind the scenes but under the skin of the sideshow folks, to show them as they are with all their romance, humor, heart-ache and tragedy. But it's not as easy as it sounds.
"The public is a curious composite. It will accept wholeheartedly a screen romance between two palpable morons; it will digest cheerfully the conversion of a congenital idiot into a Robin Hood; it will cheer the love
excursions of a girl who couldn't get past the kitchen door in a decent home in life; and it will reveal other strange quirks. But will it accept the love of two dwarfs? I wish I knew the answer.
"That's one of the interesting sides of my particular work in pictures. I don't have to follow a beaten track. In fact, if I do follow one, I am doomed. The result is that I get a lot of fun out of a picture while the other fellows often have a dull time, even a hectic time, trying to conjure up new ways to tell an old story. But life isn't milk and honey for me all the time. Take this congress of freaks for example.
"When I first outlined the story, a sketch was sent out in the publicity. It was expedient that I get types and it was not possible to gather them from the usual sources. I had to broadcast a call for anyone with anything abnormal. I urged them to send photos to the studio, but these are hard times and they took no such chances. They came in person, and they sent letters by the ton. 'I have three thumbs!', 'I have dancing eyes!',' 'I can swallow my own nose!'
"My applicants ranged front a giant to a dwarf barely over two feet tall. There was a 'dog-faced boy' who said that despite his canine lineaments he's a strict vegetarian; another application is from a 'human pretzel' who can bend his body into 'granny knots'. Some of' course have already been hired such as
Johnny Eck, the boy with only half a body;
Coo Koo, 'the bird girl',
Pete Robinson, 'the human skeleton'; and Little Martha, the armless wonder.
"Others who are en route are
Randian, known as 'the living torso', who gets along without either arms or legs;
Schlitzie, 'the pin head woman';
Olga, a bearded woman;
Josephine Joseph, half man and half woman; the famous
Hilton Sisters, Siamese twins; and
Hurry Earles of '
The Unholy Three' and his sister
Daisy, who will have the chief freak roles. Daisy is making her screen debut."
Discussion of the problems of this picture inevitably led back to the late
Lon Chaney, with whom Browning was associated for so many years; and, also inevitably, to the question of whether there would ever be a successor to Chaney.
"No," said Browning, "at least a thousand successors have been proposed to me alone and many more have been groomed by rival directors and studios. They all seem to forget that Chaney was more than a mere technician. He was an actor; and an actor has to be able to think. That's the chief trouble with the Hollywood actor as a mass. He isn't able to think, so when the public wearies of his type, he is finished.
"Chaney's success was built on the fact that he never stood still. Once he finished with a characterization he did not go back to it. Oftentimes his efforts were not successful—no one can achieve perfection—but they were always interesting. Even if a man could be found who looks like Chaney and can be made up like Chaney for that type of role, I doubt very seriously if the public would accept him. The public must make
its own favorites.
"And this lack of thought doesn't apply to acting alone. To it can be traced, through the stories and their presentation, much of the reason for lessened interest in program pictures. It is far better to take an extra six weeks and put that much additional thought on a production, than finish it two weeks under schedule. The chances of failure are reduced an appreciable degree and the chances of success greatly enhanced.
"But directors should do their thinking before they begin shooting. So many of them want to get into action in a hurry that bad pictures result. After production has started is no time to begin making script changes. Naturally there must be some revision, but we all allow for that. Hollywood needs more homework and less studio activity. A great painter always has a plan before he starts to work, yet we who are employed on a huge canvas rely on the inspiration of the moment. The muses are often very fickle."
"Speaking of preliminary thought," I said to Browning, "Just how much time do you give to the preparation of a story?"
"That depends upon how much work has been done by the author," he answered. "In 'Freaks' I am bringing to the screen material that I have had in hand for seven years. Much of it goes back to my own experiences. I ran away from home at 15 to launch a 'wild man' act in a carnival sideshow and I got a pretty good insight to the business during years as a side show barker, spieler, clown, acrobat, connection worker and general man of all trades."
Eventually circus life palled on Browning, however, and he picked up a song and dance routine and went into vaudeville. There was a time when he and his wife ranked headline honors as "Tod and Alice Browning." Later, he tried the legitimate endof the business and got into Los Angeles with a production. His old vaudeville friend,
Charlie Murray, got him job an a movie comedian. And then a lucky automobile accident halted his career.
While he was in a plaster cast he started writing screen stories and when he emerged from the hospital asked for a chance to direct. He was assigned to "The Virgin of Stamboul" and promptly startled Hollywood and enraged his bosses by assigning
Priscilla Dean, a young woman who had been playing bits in comedies, to the stellar role. Miss Dean became an overnight sensation and Browning could do no wrong from that time on.
When he was engaged by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer he was assigned to direct Lon Chaney, whom he had directed in small roles at the beginning of the star's career. The combination was an ideal one and was terminated only by Chaney's death. "The Unholy Three" was the first of his Chaney creations and it was followed by many other sensations.
After Chaney's death Browning was rather at a loose end for a time and while adjustments were being made Browning moved to Universal, on loan, for "
Dracula."'
"Weird effects in mystery talker"
