| Cover Art |
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| Credits |
Director: Tod Browning
Starring: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates, Henry Victor, Harry Earles, Daisy Earles
Screenplay: Tod Robbins Tagline: Can a full grown woman truly love a MIDGET?
Country: USA |
Loosely based on the short story "Spurs"
by Todd Robbins, Freaks centres
around a circus troupe of misshapen, physically
challenged performers (or 'Freaks' as
they were sensitively called before political correctness).
Hans (Harry Earles) is a midget who falls in
love with 'normal' sized Cleopatra,
Queen of the Trapeze (Olga Baclanova). Cleopatra
finds this amusing and feigns interest in him,
much to the chagrin of his current midget girlfriend
Frieda (his real-life sister Daisy Earles). What
Hans does not know however is that Cleopatra has
started a passionate affair with circus Strong-Man
'Hercules' (Henry Victor), but when
Cleopatra learns that Hans has a large inheritance,
she conspires with Hercules to marry and then
poison him to inherit it. The other Freaks inevitably
find this out, and as is said in the film: "Offend
one and you offend them all!"
During the film we meet various real life circus
performers who mainly perform mundane duties such
as putting on make up, eating meals, or drinking,
while banal dialogue is spoken so we can gawk
at their physical handicaps. Their acting is not
very good and sometimes entire sentences are inaudible.
One example shows Prince Randian (who has no arms
or legs) roll a cigarette then light it with his
mouth. While he does this, a 'normal'
performer gabs inane dialogue as we watch. For
years I had wondered what Randian says at the
end of the scene. Thanks to subtitles on the DVD
I have finally learnt that he exclaims "Can
you do anything with your eyebrows?". Ahh,
I can finally sleep at night! But hang on, what
does that mean? Others in the Freaks entourage include Schlitze the Pinhead (who was
actually male and wore a dress for ease of toilet
needs); Zip and Pip, also pinheads (Jennie Lee
and Elvira Snow); Koo Koo the Bird Girl, who was
blind and had a skeletal disorder; Martha the
Armless Wonder and Frances O'Connor (both minus
arms); Daisy and Violet Hilton (twins conjoined
at the base of the spine); Angelo Rossitto (a
dwarf who went on to play 'Master Blaster'
in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome);
The Living Skeleton (Peter Robinson); The Bearded
Lady (Olga Roderick); The Stork Woman (Elizabeth
Green); Josephine Joseph (half man/half woman)
and Johnny Eck, who had no body below his ribcage.
The most famous (and quoted) scene takes place
at the wedding feast in which Olga lets her true
feelings for the Freaks be known, summing up the
subtext of the story: a person's inner beauty
cannot be judged by external appearances. The
climactic clash between good and evil that takes
place unfortunately lacks any dramatic music,
which would have greatly added to the tension.
Also, I'm not sure if seeing the limbless
Prince Randian slowly shuffling towards me with
a knife in his mouth would be particularly terrifying
either!
The dénouement of the film is disappointing.
It is obvious that Browning had the best intentions
of bringing the ultimate final shock to his tale,
but he was let down by the work of the make-up
and costume department, sadly causing more giggles
than screams. Regardless, it is easy to criticise
this now in a more prosthetic / digitally aware
age. This is a film that was made seventy-four
years ago as at 2006 and can still hold its own.
Freaks was Tod Browning's
follow up to the hugely successful Dracula with Bela Lugosi (1931). Faced with the challenge
of making a film even scarier and shocking than
this he chose Freaks which bought
an untimely end to his career. Audiences found
this film so shocking that MGM re-edited it numerous
times with alternate endings, and it was banned
in the United Kingdom for thirty years. |
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