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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class A production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Fry.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tracy v Wilson. Tracy. We got to talk about

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Speaker 1: Todd Browning all week. We did, and for some reason,

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Speaker 1: there's no commonality except for the name Todd. You're writing

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Speaker 1: a thing about Todd Browning just made me think about

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Speaker 1: Lord Todd Wadley from the Joe car Stairs episode. It

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Speaker 1: has nothing to do with this, no, nothing, Although I

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Speaker 1: could see Todd Browning making a movie about Lord Todd Wadley,

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Speaker 1: if if that timing had worked out right, and especially

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Speaker 1: if Lord Todd Wadley was murdering people right. For those

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Speaker 1: of you who don't recalled our Joe Carstairs episodes, Joe

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Speaker 1: had like a ventriloquis doll who was essentially a best friend,

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Speaker 1: sort of a mascot kind of character, which is inherently

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Speaker 1: some people are afraid of ventriloquist dolls. I have my

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Speaker 1: own issues there. I have wanted to do Todd Browning

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Speaker 1: for a long time, and he is difficult because there's

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Speaker 1: some really yucky stuff in his life. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: I love his films. I mean Dracula obviously, Like, how

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Speaker 1: many ways have I found to talk about Dracula on

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Speaker 1: the show, right, We have talked about Meila Legosi, we

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Speaker 1: have talked about Bram Stoker, we have talked about bit

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Speaker 1: players on it. It's just, for me, extraordinarily beautiful and cool.

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Speaker 1: And I love how complex the making of that film

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Speaker 1: was in terms of the um Stoker estate, etcetera. And

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Speaker 1: I love how beautiful it is. I think it's such

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Speaker 1: an extraordinarily beautiful film um and I also have long

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Speaker 1: loved Freaks, and I have been really pleased in recent

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Speaker 1: years with how much discussion has gone on around it,

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Speaker 1: including finally, you know, for a long time, there really

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Speaker 1: was not much commentary on the film in film school

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Speaker 1: kind of scenarios from the disability community that was easily

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Speaker 1: accessible for people. I'm sure there were always people having

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Speaker 1: those discussions, but in terms of like what people could

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Speaker 1: look up and really like read articles about it that

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Speaker 1: were written by people who had that unique point of

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Speaker 1: view for it much harder to come by. So that's

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Speaker 1: been really interesting, and I think that's the beauty of

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Speaker 1: it is that there's no simple answer, there's no simple takeaway, right,

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Speaker 1: there are cases to be made both that it was

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Speaker 1: exploitive and that it was you know, pretty groundbreaking in

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Speaker 1: terms of representation. Kind of can sometimes fall into that

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Speaker 1: bucket of meant well but had some problems. Although you know,

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Speaker 1: there were certainly performers that were in that movie that

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Speaker 1: wanted to work with Browning again, and it had discussions

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Speaker 1: about future films they could collaborate on, even though this

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Speaker 1: didn't come to fruition. Probably if it had been more

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Speaker 1: successful or would have been more Yeah, but as we mentioned,

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Speaker 1: the world was not ready for Freaks. Well, and it's

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Speaker 1: it's uh, it's a trajectory that exists for a lot

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Speaker 1: of different films that are showing a group that has

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Speaker 1: not historically been represented a lot in film, Right, this

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Speaker 1: sort of arc going from like, this is the first

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Speaker 1: time this community was really depicted in this way in films,

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Speaker 1: and then years or in generation later, people within that

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Speaker 1: same communities that like sort of revisiting and saying, here's

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Speaker 1: how this reflects today, and like here's how representation has

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Speaker 1: evolved in films since then, and and that kind of thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is really interesting to read sort of the snippets

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Speaker 1: of interviews of people that worked on that movie and

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Speaker 1: their perception of Browning's relationship with the cast, And like

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Speaker 1: I mentioned that most of the crew members were like,

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Speaker 1: he did not treat us well during that but he

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Speaker 1: sure was kind to them, and he did seem I mean,

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Speaker 1: based on on sort of pattern recognition of looking at

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Speaker 1: a lot of those blurbs and interview quotes, he did

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Speaker 1: seem like he wanted to spend more time with that

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Speaker 1: cast and felt a little more comfortable around them than

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Speaker 1: he did with the crew for whatever reason, whether that

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Speaker 1: was a reminiscence about his younger years in the circus

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Speaker 1: or something else. I mean, there are pictures of him

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Speaker 1: on set hugging them and holding them and his wife

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Speaker 1: being there, um, and you know it looks very family ish.

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Speaker 1: I don't have a clear sense of how much of

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Speaker 1: that was staged versus like just a genuine, more you know,

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Speaker 1: casual capture of a moment. But it's one of those

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Speaker 1: things that also because he frankly lied so much about

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Speaker 1: his own feelings, life and motivations that like, we don't

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Speaker 1: even have a clear data set to start. Yeah, Well,

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Speaker 1: and then it also it raises some questions for me.

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Speaker 1: It's it's really hard to tell from a photo a

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Speaker 1: lot of times if you were not there to see

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Speaker 1: the context in which the photo was taken. But like

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Speaker 1: whether his treatment of the cast had like a degree

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Speaker 1: of infantilizing them or or being paternalistic or anything like that. Like,

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Speaker 1: it's hard to gauge. And the trick there is that

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Speaker 1: it seems like it was a very mixed bag, right,

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Speaker 1: there are some of those things that I mentioned of

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Speaker 1: him talking about in the press that it was very

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Speaker 1: anxiety producing for him. Was was because he sometimes did

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Speaker 1: talk about them in ways that we're in fantalizing. But

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Speaker 1: some members of the cast were his others. He clearly

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Speaker 1: had much more of a you know, a report that

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Speaker 1: you would associate more with people who considered each other

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Speaker 1: equals and everything in between. I think that was probably

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Speaker 1: only augmented by members of the cast also kind of

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Speaker 1: talking crap about each other sometimes. You know, there were

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Speaker 1: certainly some instances where some members of the cast would

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Speaker 1: give interviews and talk about how other people on the

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Speaker 1: film thought they were going Hollywood and that they were

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Speaker 1: going to be famous stars now, and they say that

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Speaker 1: in kind of a really dismissive they're very foolish kind

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Speaker 1: of way. You see some of those tensions that are referenced,

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Speaker 1: they're among them. But uh yeah, in terms of how

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Speaker 1: the film actually went, like I said, it seemed to

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Speaker 1: be a pretty smooth operation overall. I think because they

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Speaker 1: were accounting for the possibilities of unpredictability, which is very

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Speaker 1: very Uh it's it's interesting to me that you know

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Speaker 1: you can budget accidents. So, um, I had not known

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Speaker 1: prior to researching this about his drunk driving accident. That

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Speaker 1: was not delightful to read about because some of those descriptions,

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Speaker 1: I was like, I don't need to read this. It

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Speaker 1: is very gruesome, it's very graphic. It is enough to

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Speaker 1: know that, um, you know, elmur Booth lost his life

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Speaker 1: very violently and suddenly. Uh. And it is you know, like,

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Speaker 1: as we said, Browning never ever talked about it ever,

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Speaker 1: so we don't really have any sense of whether he

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Speaker 1: did feel personal responsibility over it or not, whether histories

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Speaker 1: took any accountability for his actions there. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: certainly have my suspicions that and I'm literally basing this

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Speaker 1: on no evidence other than my own suspicion. That is

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Speaker 1: very possible that someone at the studio worked to make

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Speaker 1: that story go away as quickly as possible. Um, it

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Speaker 1: would certainly have been in their best interest. Yeah, Todd Browning,

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Speaker 1: he was kind of a snazzy dresser at times, though,

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Speaker 1: which I enjoyed quite a bit. The least problematic thing

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Speaker 1: about him, yay. Yeah. I just I feel like there

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Speaker 1: is some event or thing, whether it actually happened or

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Speaker 1: he got it in his head that had happened when

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Speaker 1: he was quite young, that drove a lot of this behavior.

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Speaker 1: It seems like it, right, It's like you're putting together

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Speaker 1: a puzzle that has no picture, but based on how

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Speaker 1: much he kind of uh seemed to want to distance

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Speaker 1: himself from his family and his upbringing in his hometown

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Speaker 1: and create an entire other early biography story for himself

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Speaker 1: that left out any of the uncomfortable parts. And eventually,

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Speaker 1: you know, because he did have an alcohol abuse issue.

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Speaker 1: I just feel like there had to have been something

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Speaker 1: going on that we probably will never ever know, or

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Speaker 1: maybe not. Sometimes people just do things that aren't great. Um,

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Speaker 1: So it's hard to Yeah, but I sure will watch

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Speaker 1: Dracula a whole bunch of times this season because it's

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Speaker 1: beautiful and I love it. I love it, And I

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Speaker 1: will probably watch Freaks as well Universal Horror all started

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Speaker 1: with Dracula. Hopefully you, if you are listening, are about

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Speaker 1: to embark on a fabulous weekend. UH, and I hope

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Speaker 1: that means time off where you can watch your favorite films,

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Speaker 1: whether those are films made by Todd Browning or someone else. UH.

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Speaker 1: If you don't have time off, we hope that everything

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Speaker 1: you're having to do goes as smoothly as possible, everyone

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Speaker 1: is good to you, and that you stay safe and healthy.

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Speaker 1: We will be right back here tomorrow with a classic,

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Speaker 1: and then we will see you again on Monday with

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Speaker 1: all new content. Stuph you missed in History Class is

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Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from

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