role while performing in Montreal; the completely limbless Prince Randian (also known as The Human Torso and miscredited as "Rardion"); Elizabeth Green the Stork Woman; and Koo-Koo the Bird Girl, who had Virchow-Seckel syndrome or bird-headed dwarfism and is most remembered for the scene wherein she dances on the table. Filming Freaks began principal photography in November 1931, with a 24-day shooting schedule. At the time of the production's beginning, the film had a budget of approximately $209,000, though it would eventually expand to more than $300,000. The film was shot on the MGM studio lot in Culver City, California. Baclanova recalled her time first meeting her co-stars on the set: During the shoot, the film had already begun to draw disgusted reactions, resulting in MGM segregating the film's cast and crew to a separate cafeteria so that "people could get to eat in the commissary without throwing up." Filming was completed on December 16, 1931, and Browning began retakes on December 23. Release Censorship In January 1932, MGM held test screenings of the film which proved disastrous: Art director Merrill Pye recalled that "Halfway through the preview, a lot of people got up and ran out. They didn't walk out. They ran out." Others reportedly became ill, or fainted; one woman who attended the screening threatened to sue MGM, claiming the film had caused her to suffer a miscarriage. Due to the extremely unfavorable response, the studio cut the picture down from its original 90-minute running time to just over an hour. Much of the sequence of the circus entertainers attacking Cleopatra as she lies under a lightning-struck tree was removed, as well as a sequence showing Hercules being castrated and made into a castrato, a number of comedy sequences, and most of the film's original epilogue, which included Hercules singing in a falsetto (a reference to his castration) with Cleopatra quacking along. These excised sequences are considered lost. In order to pad the running time after these cuts, a new prologue featuring a carnival barker was added, as was the alternate epilogue featuring the reconciliation of the dwarf lovers. The truncated version—now only 64 minutes long—had its premiere at the Fox Criterion in Los Angeles on February 12, 1932. It subsequently opened in New York City that summer, premiering on July 8, 1932. Regionally, the film attracted controversy upon its theatrical release, and was pulled from screenings in