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#1
08-26-2007, 05:06 PM
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Freaks (1932)
Oh hi!
I'm your hostess to the supernatural, Countess Marya Zaleska. Pardon me while sit down on my comfortable sofa and adjust my shawl, fix my dress, get a nice glass of brandy and tell you about a classic horror movie. The movie is Freaks and is from 1932. The film was directed by Tod Browning and written by Aaron "Tod" Robbins. The plot outline is that a beautiful circus trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader ( a midget)of a group of side show performers. However, his deformed friends find out that the lovely trapeze artist is marrying the leader for his inheritance but is really in love with the circus strongman. The freaks gang up on the trapeze artist and strongman and wreak their revenge for trying to kill their leader. The uniqueness of this film is that director Tod Browning uses actual sideshow abnormalities rather than actors in makeup. Browning used his expereience as a member of a travelling circus to creat this film. The reaction here in the U. S. was so intense that Browning had a hard time finding work for many years for being associated with this project. The film when finally issued here in the U. S. had many scenes deleted. The film was banned for 30 years in the U. K. The cast included: Olga Baclanova as Cleopatra, the trapeze artist Wallace Ford As Phroso Leila Hyams as Venus Roscoe Ates as Roscoe Henry Victor as Hercules The Strongman Rose Dione as Madame tetralini The sideshow "freaks" include: Harry & Daisy Earles as the midgets han & Freida Daisy & Violet Hilton as the Siamese twins Josephine Joseph as the half man/ half woman Johnny Eck as the boy with no lower extremities Pete Robinson as the human skeleton Martha Morris and Frances O'Connor as the armless wonders Price Radian as the human torso Angelo Rossitti as the dwarf Schlitze & the Snow Twins ( Zip & Pip) as performers that suffered with microcephaly Elizabeth Green as the stork girl 'Koo Koo as the bird girl Olga Roderick as the bearded lady The "freaks" take their revenge on the Cleopatra and Hercules during a storm filled night with each of them being shown moving toward the punishment of the two. At the end Cleopatra is seen as a half human clucking hen. The punishment for Hercules is castration. In the original film Hercules was to been seen at the end as a singing soprano but the censors forced this scene to be cut leaving only Cleopatra as the half human clucking hen. There has been a renewed interest in this film and it has been shown on TV and has been released on DVD. Even though this is a 1932 film which shows it's age, it is not for the squeemish. Remember, Browing uses actual persons not actors in makeup. This film is still shocking despite it's age. Leonard Maltin gives this film a 3.5 out of 4 stars. I agree fully. It's a great film ahead of it's time. The DVD issued today restores most of the cut scenes as well as a special section on the biographies of the side show performers. Quite interesting and shocking as well. If you are a classic horror movie buff, this is a movie you need for your library. Well, must be going now. So long from your hostess in the supernatural, Countess Marya Zaleska I just love films that I can put my teeth into. Don't you! Lol!
__________________
 The Countess Last edited by Marya Zaleska; 08-26-2007 at 05:19 PM. 
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#2
08-26-2007, 06:13 PM
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Amazing film everyone should go see it on the big screen if they get the chance.
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#3
08-27-2007, 02:17 AM
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Yes a truly amazing film.
Even more amazing to think of it in the context of other horror films of the time.
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#4
08-27-2007, 04:10 AM
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I found the fact that browning did a movie based on sideshow freaks somewhat intresting considering he himself used to be in a circus and part of a sideshow. It was only a matter of time before he did a movie involving sideshow freaks. :p
__________________
Your Brain's Smell Sexy.  2007 Top 13 Professional Haunted Attractions 1. Netherworld Haunted House, Atlanta, GA 2. 13th Gate, Baton Rouge, LA Go to hauntworld for the rest we are also on the scariest haunted house commercial list!!
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#5
08-27-2007, 08:36 AM
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One of the best movies ever made, IMO. Browning was a genius with his vision and the casting of real circus freaks was brilliant.
Definitely in my top 10 vintage horror movie list.
__________________
"If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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#6
08-27-2007, 08:41 AM
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Haha.Don't fuck with little Hans!
__________________
I will bathe the starways in your blood.
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#7
08-27-2007, 08:41 AM
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Quote:
The Unknown was even earlier than Freaks, and starred Lon Chaney.....http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018528/ and is another must see.....:) I think there was another as well, but I can't remember for sure, or who starred. Of course, the difference being the actors weren't truly sideshow performers. Freaks is a favorite of mine. A truly disturbing film, and it was a very gutsy film to make at the time.
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#9
08-28-2007, 06:26 AM
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The other one you're thinking of is the Unholy Three. Freaks has everything that the greatest horror movies have. It's a supreme moral fiction, an insight into human depravity, a tableau of horrors and an example for future filmmakers.
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#10
08-28-2007, 08:59 AM
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Agreed -- great flick, easy to see how it would have shocked viewers of its time. Fat chance he stood of directing another "classy" movie like Dracula once this one mortified the populace, though.
There is one bit that gives me a chuckle, and don't take it as me being spiteful or anything. But at the climax, when all the freaks are wallowing through the storm after the villainess, it shows the armless/legless man wiggling through the mud with a knife in his mouth. And I have to ask...how the hell is he gonna stab somebody? Then again, maybe he was just carrying it for the pinhead. I dunno.
__________________
"If you were me, you'd be good lookin'."
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