Freaks with Wallace Ford: DVD Cover
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Freaks
a.k.a. Monster Show, Nature's Mistakes Director: Tod Browning Cast: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates

DVD - Subtitled / B&W / Full Frame Learn more

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  • DVD Release Date: 08/10/2004
  • Original Release: 1932
  • Rating: Not Rated
  • Sales Rank: 1,423

Viewer Rating: (9 ratings)

Detailed Rating: "Performances" See All

 
  • Overview
  • Editorial Reviews
  • Scenes
  • Customer Reviews
  • Cast & Crew
  • Full Product Details

Scenes

Features

Commentary by David J. Skal, author of Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning, Hollywood's Master of the Macabre; All-new documentary "Freaks: Sideshow Cinema"; Special Message prologue added for theatrical reissue; Three alternate endings; Subtitles: English, Français, & Español

Full Product Details

Scene Index

Side #1 --
1. Eyes for a Woman. [4:38]
2. Children in the Forest. [2:20]
3. Venus on the Move. [6:07]
4. The Hilton Sisters. [1:15]
5. Cleopatra's Wiles. [3:18]
6. Women Must Worry. [2:38]
7. Hit Me. [2:52]
8. Baby News; Twin Trouble. [1:57]
9. Conversations. [3:00]
10. Saying Yes. [4:07]
11. Frieda's Hurt. [2:31]
12. Frieda's Plea. [4:06]
13. Wedding Feast. [2:43]
14. "One of Us!" [3:10]
15. A Joke. [2:36]
16. Morning After. [2:19]
17. Tonight. [4:19]
18. Stormy Night. [2:56]
19. Surrounding Hercules. [2:30]
20. Code of the Freaks. [2:06]
21. Cast List. [:24]

Scene Index

Editorial Reviews

The genesis of MGM's Freaks was a magazine piece by Ted Robbins titled Spurs. The story involved a terrible revenge enacted by a mean-spirited circus midget upon his normal-sized wife. In adapting Spurs for the screen, writers Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon, Edgar Allan Wolf, and Al Boasberg retained the circus setting and the little man-big woman wedding, all the while de-vilifying the midget and transforming the woman into the true "heavy" of the piece. German "little person" Harry Earles plays Hans, who falls in love with long-legged trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova). Discovering that Hans is heir to a fortune, Cleopatra inveigles him into a marriage, all the while planning to bump off her new husband and run away with brutish strongman Hercules (Henry Victor). What she doesn't reckon with is the code of honor among circus freaks: "offend one, offend them all." What set this film apart from director Tod Browning's earlier efforts was the fact that genuine circus and carnival sideshow performers were cast as the freaks: Harry Earles and his equally diminutive sister Daisy, Siamese twins Violet and Daisy Hilton, legless Johnny Eck, armless-legless Randian (who rolls cigarettes with his teeth), androgynous Josephine-Joseph, "pinheads" Schlitzie, Elvira, Jennie Lee Snow, and so on. Upon its initial release, Freaks was greeted with such revulsion from movie-house audiences that MGM spent the next 30 years distancing themselves as far from the project as possible. For many years available only in a truncated reissue version titled Nature's Mistakes, Freaks was eventually restored to its original release print. Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Customer Reviews

Classic Movieby Mike_in_Dallas

Reader Rating:
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August 22, 2009: I remember watching this as a kid, and it was very old then. I made a lasting impression on me. For years this was not played again on commercial TV, when I saw it was on DVD, i had to purchase it. It still has a last power to stir the emotions. It still has revelance.

A very Shocking and Great Movieby san_dan

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February 16, 2009: I must say that I would have never pictured such a scandelous movie like "Freaks" to have been at the time it was. I highly, highly recommend this movie to people who enjoy old classics and also to those who love great suspense in movies. Unlike many movies the ending does not disappoint you.


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