Beautiful circus trapeze artiste Cleopatra likes to flirt with one of the sideshow attractions, Hans, a dwarf — much to the dismay of his fiancee, Frieda. When Cleopatra learns that Hans is a wealthy man, she decides to marry him. It’s a choice she will live to regret…
“Give me something that will out-horror Frankenstein,” MGM production chief Irving Thalberg demanded of his leading genre stylist, Tod Browning (Dracula). But he was not ready for what Browning wrought. One of the most shocking films to come out of the studio system, Freaks was a financial failure in 1932, but became a cult favourite decades later, and is now widely regarded as a masterpiece. It was decades ahead of its time, and it still packs a punch.
In the pre-screening presentation, Michael van den Bos examines why and how this freak of an MGM film was made, its horror elements, the controversy it generated and director Browning’s visual approach.
A work of genius.
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
A superb and unique film from the master of the morbid, masochistic and macabre, Tod Browning.
Geoff Andrew, Time Out
2:00 pm
2:30 pm
Michael van den Bos
Tod Browning
Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Rosco Ates, Henry Victor, Harry Earles, Daisy Earles
USA
1932
English
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Credits
Screenwriter
Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon
Editor
Basil Wrangell
Art Director
Cedric Gibbons, Merrill Pye
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