Freaks

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For other uses, see Freak (disambiguation).

Freaks
Image:FreaksPoster.jpg 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.
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 travelling 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.

The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

1 Overview
2 Adaptations and influence
3 The famous quote
4 Other references
5 External links

[edit] Overview

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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 money that he had inherited. She mocks the other members of the troupe during their wedding celebrations and faces their vicious retribution when she, along with her accomplice and lover, the strongman (Henry Victor), attempt to poison Hans.

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 microcephiles 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 is most remembered for the scene where she dances on the table, Elizabeth Green the Stork Woman, Pete Robinson the Living Skeleton and Olga Roderick the Bearded Lady.

[edit] Adaptations and influence

Image:Freaks (1949 reissue).jpg

A comics 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.

[edit] The famous quote

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

It was nominated by AFI for AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes [1], which was a voted upon list of the greatest movie quotes in the history of American cinema. The quote from Freaks didn't make the top 100, however.

In the season 1 episode of The Simpsons called There's No Disgrace Like Home and in the season 14 episode called Special Edna.

In the South Park episode Butters' Very Own Episode.

In the Clerks Animated Series. episode 6.

In the episode of Johnny Bravo titled Carnival of the Darned, which was an obvious homage to Freaks.

It was the inspiration for the Ramones' song "Pinhead" (quoted as "Gabba Gabba"); the introduction runs "Gabba-Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us!". This led to the famous Ramones cheer "Gabba-Gabba Hey!"

It was also the inspiration for the Girls Against Boys song "Freaks", which was featured on the soundtrack of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

The quote also appears in Robert Altman's The Player (1992).

And in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers with the accompanying clip playing after the characters say the line.

And in the Marillion song "Separated Out", from the album Anoraknophobia.

In an issue of the comic book Harley Quinn. Harley, a former psychiatrist, is sent to live in Arkham Asylum herself, after repeatedly freeing The Joker. As she is being led to her cell, Dr. Arkham asks her "Why did you do it? You were one of us!" prompting her to chant "One of us! One of us!" and the other inmates to join in.

In the Marilyn Manson song doll dagga, buzz buzz, ziggety on the album golden age of grotesque.

[edit] Other references

In DVD commentary for the third season of The Kids in the Hall, Mark McKinney states that two of the show's recurring characters, Kevin McDonald's Bearded Lady and his own Chicken Lady, were inspired by the movie.

Bill Griffith's comic strip character Zippy the Pinhead was inspired by Schlitzie the pinhead in the film

David Bowie references Browning's film 'Freaks' within the first verse of "Diamond Dogs":

As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent,

You ask 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 favourite 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.