Freaks - DVD
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Freaks was produced at the very beginning of the sound era by the largest of the Hollywood majors, MGM, only for its head, the great Louis B. Mayer, to have the original destroyed shortly thereafter and condemn the film to thirty years of obscurity. The reason the film so outraged audiences at the time is the same reason it became a cult classic in the second half of the 1960s – it is arguably the most bizarre film ever made in Hollywood. The plot is simple – a blindly infatuated dwarf is threatened by a heartless tall blonde named Cleopatra, aided by a well-built man known by the stage name Hercules. The dwarf is saved from the clutches of the greedy woman by his fellow “freak” friends, a friendly clown and a kind seal trainer… The story is set in a circus environment with its own sideshow, teeming with human “oddities” (Siamese twins, a bearded woman, microcephalics, a torso man, a skeleton man, and other “mistakes of nature”). However, these roles are not played by actors in makeup, but by real people. The casting was likely intended as the film’s great triumph, ensuring its success. The director selected around twenty performers from several hundred applicants across the United States, collectively forming a kind of “best of” the era’s offerings. By 1931, such anomalies were no longer exhibited in cages, but they remained a popular part of cabaret shows, with many of the performers enjoying true star status...