Lightweight boxing champion. This sports-drama concerns the struggle between the Kid's friend and manager George Regan Robert Armstrong, and the boxer's adulterous wife Rose (Jean Harlow) to prevail in a contest for his affection and loyalty. Rather than relying largely upon "editing and composition as expressive tools" Browning moved away from a stationary camera "toward a conspicuous use of camera movement" under the influence of Karl Freund, cinematographer on the 1931 Dracula. Iron Man exhibits this "transformation" in Browning's cinematic style as he entered the sound era. Leger Grindon provides this assessment of Browning's last picture for Universal: Though box office earning for Iron Man are unavailable, a measure of its success is indicated in the two remakes the film inspired: Some Blondes Are Dangerous (1937) and Iron Man (1950). Browning returned to M-G-M studios after completing Iron Man to embark upon the most controversial film of his career: Freaks (1932). Magnum opus: Freaks (1932) After the spectacular success of Dracula (1931) at Universal, Browning returned to M-G-M studios, lured by a generous contract and enjoying the auspices of production manager Irving Thalberg. Anticipating a repeat of his recent success at Universal, Thalberg accepted Browning's story proposal based on Tod Robbins' circus-themed tale "Spurs" (1926). The studio purchased the rights and enlisted screenwriter Willis Goldbeck and Leon Gordon to develop the script with Browning. Thalberg collaborated closely with the director on pre-production, but Browning completed all the actual shooting on the film without interference from studio executives. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's president, Louis B. Mayer, registered his disgust with the project from its inception and during the filming, but Thalberg successfully intervened on Browning's behalf to proceed with the film. The picture that emerged was Browning's "most notorious and bizarre melodrama." A "morality play", Freaks centers around the cruel seduction of a circus sideshow midget Hans (Harry Earles) by a statuesque trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova). She and her lover, strongman Hercules (Henry Victor), scheme to murder the diminutive Hans for his inheritance money after sexually humiliating him. The community of freaks mobilizes in Hans' defense, meting out severe justice to Cleopatra and Hercules: the former trapeze beauty is surgically transformed into a sideshow freak. Browning enlisted a cast of performers largely assembled from carnival freak shows—a community and milieu both of which the director was intimately familiar. The circus freaks serve as dramatic and comedic players, central to the story's development, and