Freaks

Director: Tod Browning Tod Browning

Overview

Real sideshow performers star in Tod Browning's infamous cult classic, a grotesque revenge drama set against a circus backdrop. Trapeze artist Cleopatra plans to wed and then murder midget Hans for his fortune, but when his fellow 'freaks' discover her scheme, she becomes the target of their horrifying vengeance.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/13/2016
UPC:	0889290615480
Original Release:	1932
Source:	Mr. Fat-W Video
Language:	English
Time:	1:05:00

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Harry Earles	Hans,Frieda
Olga Baclanova	Cleopatra
Wallace Ford	Phroso
Leila Hyams	Venus
Roscoe Ates	Roscoe,Actor
Henry Victor	Hercules
Rose Dione	Madame Tetrallini
Daisy Hilton	Siamese Twin,Siamese Twin
Edward Brophy	Rollo Brother,Rollo Brother
Matt McHugh	Rollo Brother
Olga Roderick	Bearded Lady
Johnny Eck	Boy with Half a Torso
Prince Randian	Hindu Living Torso
Schlitze	Herself
Pip	Pinhead
Pete Robinson	Living Skeleton
Koo Koo	Bird Girl
Josephine-Joseph	Half Woman-Half Man
Martha Morris	Armless Wonder
Frances O'Connor	The Living Venus de Milo,Herself
Angelo Rossitto	Angeleno
Elizabeth Green	Stork Woman
Albert Conti	Monsieur Duval, the Landowner
Michael Visaroff	Jean the Caretaker
Murray Kinnell	Sideshow Barker
Ernie S. Adams	Sideshow Patron
Louise Beavers	Maid
Elvira Snow	Pinhead
John Aasen	Giant
Demetrius Alexis	Mr. Rogers
Jerry Austin	Knife-Throwing Dwarf
Mathilde Comont	Madame Bartet
Burgess Meredith	Carny Caller
Randian	Himself
Zip	Themselves
Peter Robinson	Human Skeleton

Technical Credits

Willis Goldbeck

Leon Gordon

Edgar Allan Woolf

Al Boasberg

Charles MacArthur

Tod Browning	Director,Producer
Willis Goldbeck	Screenwriter
Leon Gordon	Screenwriter
Edgar Allan Woolf	Screenwriter
Al Boasberg	Screenwriter
Irving Thalberg	Producer
Ted Robbins	Stunts
Charles MacArthur	Screenwriter
Dwain Esper	Producer
Harry Rapf	Producer
Hildegarde Stadie	Producer
Douglas Shearer	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

If you regard audacity as a quality to be admired in filmmaking, it's hard not to be a bit in awe of Tod Browning, who with Freaks made one of the grimmest and most offensive films of its era -- and managed this feat at MGM, the most glamorous studio in Hollywood. A pre-Code tale of love, deceit, and revenge at a carnival midway, with a frank-for-its-day approach to sexual gamesmanship and violent retribution among its characters, Freaks would have raised a few eyebrows under ideal circumstances. But Browning upped the ante by casting real-life human oddities in supporting roles, most of whom would never have appeared in a major studio film otherwise. You can't say that Schlitzie the Pinhead, Randian the Living Torso, or Daisy and Violet Hilton the Siamese twins are great actors, but their flatness merely adds to the film's impact. Incapable of "acting" in the conventional sense, they are what they are, and the blunt realism of their flat onscreen affect takes this film to a place that no other film of the day would dare to go. And while Browning uses the freaks for their shock value, he also allows them to live off-stage lives that aren't played for laughs; if their final revenge is ugly, it shows them seizing power in a way that would be denied them in nearly any other dramatic context. Freaks is generally considered to be the film that killed Tod Browning's career; but what's remarkable isn't that he would make only four more films after this one, but that he was allowed to make any more films at all.