Freaks

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Freaks

1932 theatrical poster
Directed by Tod Browning
Produced by Tod Browning
Dwain Esper (reissue; uncredited)
Starring Wallace Ford
Leila Hyams
Olga Baclanova
Distributed by MGM
Release date(s) February 20, 1932 (U.S. release)
Running time 64 min.
Country Flag of United States United States
Language English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Freaks is a Pre-Code 1932 horror film about sideshow performers, directed by Tod Browning.

The movie was adapted by Al Boasberg, Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon, and Edgar Allan Woolf from the short story Spurs by Tod Robbins. Browning, famed at the time for his collaborations with Lon Chaney and for directing Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931), took the exceptional step of casting real people with deformities as the eponymous sideshow "freaks," rather than using costumes and makeup. Director Browning had been a member of a traveling circus in his early years, and much of the film was drawn from his personal experiences. He intended to portray the classic moral of how outer beauty does not necessarily equate to inner beauty. 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.

Reaction to this film was so intense that Browning had trouble finding work afterwards, and this in effect brought his career to an early close. Because its deformed cast was shocking to moviegoers of the time, the film was banned in the United Kingdom for thirty years.

In 1994 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry's archive of cinematic treasures.

Contents

[edit] Plot synopsis

Freaks tells the story of an average-sized trapeze artist named Cleopatra (played by Olga Baclanova) who marries a sideshow midget, Hans (played by Harry Earles), for his inheritance.

At their wedding reception, the other "freaks" resolve that they like Cleopatra in spite of her being a "normal" outsider, and hold an initiation ceremony, wherein they pass a massive goblet of wine around the table while chanting, "We accept her! We accept her! One of us! One of us! Gooble gobble, gooble gobble! One of us! One of us!" The ceremony frightens the drunken Cleopatra, who reveals that she has been having an affair with Hercules, the strong man, she begins to mock the freaks and pours out the wine all over her stunned husband; despite the revelation of being cuckolded and humiliated, Hans remains with Cleopatra.

Shortly thereafter, Cleopatra begins slipping poison into Hans' meals to kill him so that she can inherit his money and run away with Hercules. One of Hans' co-workers overhears Cleopatra talking to Hercules about the murder plot, and reveals it to the other freaks and Hans; in the film's climax, the freaks attack Cleopatra and Hercules with guns, knives, and various edged weapons, hideously mutilating them (and possibly killing Hercules; he is not seen again). The film concludes with a revelation of Cleopatra's fate: Her tongue cut out and her legs hacked off, she has been reduced to performing for children as "the human chicken." An earlier draft of the film had the freaks castrating Hercules, who would then be reduced to a soprano opera singer for the rest of his career.

[edit] Other plot details

Spliced throughout the main narrative are a variety of "slice of life" segments detailing the lives of the sideshow performers. The vignettes, while not advancing the main narrative, drive home the point that the physically malformed freaks are just as human as their non-malformed co-workers:

  • The bearded woman, who loves the human skeleton, gives birth to their daughter.
  • Violet, a conjoined twin whose sister Daisy is married to one of the circus clowns, herself becomes engaged to the owner of the circus. (In a risque moment, Daisy appears to react with sexual arousal when Violet makes out with her suitor, implying that each sister can experience the other's physical sensations.)
  • The Human Torso, in the middle of a conversation, rolls his own cigarette and lights it, using only his tongue.

The film also stars Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, and Earles' real-life sister Daisy Earles.

Among the characters featured as "freaks" were the Hilton twins, a pair of female conjoined twins; and the armless wonders, Frances O'Connor and Martha Morris. There were several microcephalics who were referred to in the film as "pinheads". The most notable of these was Schlitzie, who wore a dress mainly to make it easier to use the toilet, but who was in fact a male named Simon Metz. Other microcephiles were Zip and Pip (Elvira and Jenny Lee Snow, the inspiration for Zippy the Pinhead). Also featured were the intersexual Josephine Joseph, with her left/right divided gender; Johnny Eck, the legless man; and the completely limbless Prince Randian (also known as The Human Torso, and mis-credited as "Rardion"), who, in a notable scene, rolls and lights a cigarette with his mouth. There was also Koo-Koo the Bird Girl (who suffered from Virchow-Seckel syndrome or bird-headed dwarfism, and who is most remembered for the scene where she dances on the table), Elizabeth Green the Stork Woman, Peter Robinson the Living Skeleton and Olga Roderick the Bearded Lady.

[edit] Adaptations and influence

Poster for the film's 1949 reissue, inviting audiences to "See - Can a full grown woman truly love a midget? See - What sex is the half man half woman? See - do Siamese twins make love?"
Poster for the film's 1949 reissue, inviting audiences to "See - Can a full grown woman truly love a midget? See - What sex is the half man half woman? See - do Siamese twins make love?"

A comic book adaptation of Freaks was published in four issues by Monster Comics in 1982, written by Jim Woodring and illustrated by F. Solano Lopez.

The movie was one of the inspirations for the television show Carnivàle on HBO, which is also set in the 1930s.

The music video for the U2 song "All I Want Is You" was based on this film.

The 2006 movie Freakshow has countless references to the movie and even the front cover boasts "In the spirit of Tod Brownings Freaks"

[edit] The famous quote

At one point in the film, the Freak crowd cries: '"Gooble gobble, gooble gobble, we accept her, we accept her, one of us, one of us!" It is a phrase that has since been honored or used in homage numerous times:

[edit] Other references

2004 DVD release of Freaks.
2004 DVD release of Freaks.
As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent,
You asked for the latest party,
With your silicone hump and your ten inch stump,
Dressed like a priest you was,
Tod Browning's freak you was.
  • A screen capture of Hans has become an internet meme. It was apparently from the DVD, as there is a subtitle of "Never before did I think I should be so unlucky."
  • Frank Zappa once called it one of his favorite films. Note that his debut album was called Freak Out! and he used to call himself and the fans of his music "freaks", a name with the same kind of "proud label" as "hippie", though as Zappa put it himself: "more original and creative". On a later album from 1980 called Tinsel Town Rebellion, the cover features a collage, and a close look reveals a couple of stills from the movie are visible in the artwork.
  • Tom Waits mentions some of the performers by name in "Lucky Day Overture," the opening number from The Black Rider.
  • Writer David Hine references the movie in the last two issues of his Marvel comicbook District X.
  • The alien dolls in Toy Story try to get Buzz Lightyear to stay in the Claw machine, chanting "One of us, one of us."
  • Meadow Sopranos roomate Caitlin is disturbed after having watched the movie at the Columbia student center
  • Sarah Vowell uses the quote "One of Us" "One of Us" on NPR's "This American Life" in the episode where Ira Glass teaches her to drive a car.
  • In the video game "Blood" by Monolith software, the player can encounter a large temple in which "one of us" is constantly chanted.
  • In Australian soap opera Neighbours, Scott Timmins pounds on the tables in the Scarlet Bar, while chanting "One of us, one of us!", having been informed that Sky Mangel is pregnant with his nephew and that she is to wed brother Dylan Timmins.
  • The soundtrack to the film version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch contains a song called "Freaks" performed by Girls Against Boys, which makes reference to the film in its chorus and repeating stanzas.
We are freaks we follow the code of freaks
One of us one of us
One of us one of us.
  • In the Mac shareware game Enigma, the ending of the game is an opening of the box to reveal a crowd of people trapped inside(including the three taunters that appear throughout the game). The player is then drawn inside the box to a chant of "One of us! One of us! One of us!" to become another taunter, taunting those outside the box with various comparisons to monkeys.

[edit] External links

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