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Welcome to Movies & Film
Movie Reviews, & Film Industry Commentary
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1932 – NR – 64 min.
Director: Tod Browning
Primary Cast: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates, Harry Earles, Henry Victor, Johnny Eck, Daisy and Violet Hilton, Prince Randian, Zip and Pip, Schlitze
Stars *****
Popcorn *****
Film Type(s): Drama, Horror, Camp, Circus, Thriller
Synopsis: Based on Ted Robbins magazine article “Spurs”, Freaks is about a circus “little person” Hans falls in love with normal sized Cleopatra. Upon discovering he is inheriting a forturn, Cleopatra plots to marry and ‘bump off’ Hans with Strongman Hercules. The only problem is that at the wedding reception when all of the ‘freaks’ accept her as “One of Us.”, she rages at them in a drunken stupor and humiliates Hans. The ‘freaks’ then decide to exact their revenge when they discover she is slowly poisoning Hans and Hercules attempts to rape Seal Trainer and friend to the ‘freaks’ Venus (Hyams). In the rainstorm finale, the villains are cornered by the ‘freaks’, who make Cleopatra ‘One of Us.’
Review: Freaks is a film that is controversial to this day. This melodrama / thriller focuses on a traveling circus and, in particular, the dwarf that secretly inherits a fortune and the normal sized, plotting wife. Based on the magazine article “Spurs”, Freaks was unique in many ways. First and foremost, Director Browning (fresh from the success of Dracula) used real life oddities in the roles rather than actors playing that role. Among those cast were Dwarves, a Torso that rolled and lit his own cigarettes, ‘pin-heads’, conjoined twins, a bearded lady, and a half-man / half-woman. Rather than detracting from the film, this casting adding a real human element to the film – not using them for comic effect like other films did at the time, but to show how true and ‘normal’ they were. The Second thing making it unique was the sexuality of the film just before (and arguably the cause of) the Production Code being put into place. The overt sexual wants of Hans the Dwarf (Harry Earles) for Acrobat Cleopatra (Baclanova) and in turn her wants for Strongman Hercules (Victor) and how the three interact with others shows a range of then-taboo sex related subject matter, including rape, incest, divorce, and pregnancy. The only part of the film out of place is the brutality of the ending, turning the ‘freaks’ from sympathetic characters into stereotyped heavies when they exact their revenge on attempted rapist Hercules and turning Cleopatra into a ‘one of us’. The primary accomplishment of this film, however, was not just that is was made, but made at the ‘glamorous’ mainstream studio, MGM, and although they distanced themselves from it for thirty years, it became a camp classic in the 1970’s and has been a staple of camp cinema ever since.
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