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Freaks

Freaks
FreaksPoster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Tod Browning
Produced by Tod Browning
Harry Rapf (uncredited)
Irving Thalberg (uncredited)
Screenplay by Willis Goldbeck
Leon Gordon
Based on Spurs
1923 short story
by Tod Robbins
Starring Wallace Ford
Leila Hyams
Olga Baclanova
Roscoe Ates
Cinematography Merritt B. Gerstad
Edited by Basil Wrangell
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • February 20, 1932 (1932-02-20)
Running time
90 minutes (Original cut)
64 minutes(Edited cut)
Country United States
Language English
German
French
Budget $316,000 or $350,000

Freaks is a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film in which the eponymous characters were played by people who worked as carnival sideshow performers and had real deformities. The original version was considered too shocking to be released and no longer exists. Directed and produced by Tod Browning, whose career never recovered from it, Freaks has been described as standing alone in a subgenre of one.

At 16, Browning had left his well-to-do family to join a traveling circus; he drew on his personal experiences for Freaks. Because of his success as the director of Dracula, he was given a considerable leeway for a major studio's first horror film: this and the fact he was working in Pre-Code Hollywood enabled a unique production. In the film, the physically deformed "freaks" are inherently trusting and honorable people, while the real monsters are two of the "normal" members of the circus who conspire to murder one of the performers to obtain his large inheritance.

The film opens with a sideshow barker drawing customers to visit the sideshow. A woman looks into a box to view a hidden occupant and screams. The barker explains that the horror in the box was once a beautiful and talented trapeze artist. The central story is of this conniving trapeze artist Cleopatra, who seduces and marries sideshow midget Hans after learning of his large inheritance. Cleopatra conspires with circus strongman Hercules to kill Hans and inherit his wealth. At their wedding reception, Cleopatra begins poisoning Hans' wine. Oblivious, the other "freaks" announce that they accept Cleopatra in spite of her being a "normal" outsider: they hold an initiation ceremony in which they pass a massive goblet of wine around the table while chanting, "We accept her, we accept her. One of us, one of us. Gooba-gobble, gooba-gobble". The ceremony frightens the drunken Cleopatra, who accidentally reveals that she has been having an affair with Hercules. She mocks the freaks, tosses the wine in their faces and drives them away. The humiliated Hans realizes that he has been played for a fool and rejects Cleopatra's attempts to apologize, but then he falls ill from the poison.

While bedridden, Hans pretends to apologize to Cleopatra and also pretends to take the poisoned medicine that she is giving him, but he secretly plots with the other freaks to strike back at Cleopatra and Hercules. In the film's climax, the freaks attack the evil pair during a storm, wielding guns, knives and other sharp-edged weapons. Hercules is not seen again (the film's original ending had the freaks castrating him: the audience sees him later singing in falsetto). As for Cleopatra, she has become a grotesque, squawking "human duck". The flesh of her hands has been melted and deformed to look like duck feet, her legs have been cut off and what is left of her torso has been permanently tarred and feathered. She is the opening scene's cause for alarm.


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