Review of Freaks (1932) by Edith N — 15 Oct 2008

Raul used to quote this movie all the time, specifically the title of today's review. I'm not 100% sure he ever actually saw it, I must admit, and he certainly never showed it to me, but he would quote it nonetheless. (I [i]think[/i] he'd seen it, and he probably just never got around to showing it to me; he might well have had it somewhere in his vast collection.) Stephen King is also well acquainted with it; it's one of the few pre-1950 horror movies to rate mention in his [i]Danse Macabre[/i]--one of the few movies at all to rate a picture. Between the two of them, they've had me meaning to see this movie for years, and I'm sure you can imagine my delight when I discovered that the library had it.

Obviously, we start our story in a circus, at a freak show. While there are other acts in the show, it is the freaks who seem to be its focus. And one of the most distinguished of the freaks is Hans (Harry Earles), a handsome, rich little person, engaged to the equally attractive Frieda (his sister Daisy, awkwardly enough). However, he pines over the ostensibly normal Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), a tall, graceful woman who works on the trapeze. She is not interested in Hans, but she is passionately interested in his money, and she determines to marry him for it, despite her love of the strongman Hercules (Henry Victor). There is also a charming sideplot about the courtship of the equestrienne(?) Venus (Leila Hyams) by the clown Phroso (Wallace Ford).

Unfortunately, there is no way to see this film except in expurgated form. This relatively tame story was reviled by the censors; King speculates that the furor over it is because of director Tod Browning's use of real freaks. (They actually were forced to have their own table outside the studio cafeteria, because the other actors therein couldn't eat and look at them at the same time.) It's hard to take it all lightly given the scene wherein a man with no arms or legs lights himself a cigarette--what appears to be a [i]hand-rolled[/i] cigarette, at that! The film wasn't allowed into the UK at all for decades, and there is footage from the original ending that is no longer believed to exist.

What I find even more interesting is that most of the freaks use their own names in the movie. The Siamese twins Daisy and Violet are really played by Daisy and Violet Hilton. (Presumably no relation!) The pinheads, the dwarfs, the armless and legless--almost all use their real names. Indeed, that may make the whole thing even more real and, therefore, even more eerie. It will surrpise no one to learn that I was not scared by this movie, and not only because I'd already read the original story years ago. However, I can see the roots of really good horror movies in it. From what the various freaks said, they were well-treated on the set, if not in the cafeteria, but the fact remains that they are used for and to horrific effect.

I suppose we can chalk one more up on the "classic movies" list, albeit a cult classic. It's one of the 1001, and I'm not surprised. At its heart, the freakishness or not of its main characters does not matter. The film is trying to preach tolerance for the unusual, though it was usually screened as an exploitation flick, but the lesson we must take away from it is that one cannot tell who the freaks are just by looking at them. Consider, after all, the cruel nature of Cleopatra compared to the generous nature of Frieda. Venus herself rightly identifies more with the freaks than with Hercules, who tells her to stick to her own kind.