Tod Browning

Quote:
The sideshow of Madame Tetrallini (Rose Dione) is going well until acrobat Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), in league with strongman Hercules (Henry Victor) decides to marry and murder the rich midget Hans (Harry Earles) for his inheritance. Hans’ midget girlfriend Frieda (Daisy Earles) can do nothing, and neither can circus clown Phroso (Wallace Ford) or ‘normal’ performer Venus (Leila Hyams). But Hans is not alone: The freaks have an unwritten code among themselves to punish cruel outsiders.Read More »

Although his murdered friend was by all accounts a scoundrel a true “bounder” Edward Wales is determined to trap his killer by staging a seance using a famous medium. Many of the 13 seance participants had a reason and a means to kill, and one of them uses the cover of darkness to kill again. When someone close to the medium is suspected she turns detective, in the hope of uncovering the true murderer.Read More »

Review:
Originally released in 1932 to cash in on the horror boom of the 30s, “Freaks” has always been something of a hot potato.

Director Tod Browning, who’d scored a huge hit with the original “Dracula” in 1930, promised MGM the ultimate scary movie.

But the resulting picture surprised everyone: “I asked for something horrifying,” said the studio’s shocked head of production, “and I got it.”

After trouble with the censors and a brief cinema run during which audiences reacted with unparalleled disgust, the picture was dropped and vanished into obscurity until it was revived in the 60s.

It’s easy to see why reactions to the film have been so strong – it’s a catalogue of the abnormal, the bizarre, and the grotesque that’s still as unsettling today as it was 70 years ago.Read More »

In this boxing drama, a prizefighter is left by his money-grubbing showgirl wife who aspires to be a movie star. The fighter’s manager is tickled by the turn of events and immediately snaps the boxer out of his love-struck funk and sets him a challenging training program. Sure enough the fighter makes a strong comeback. As soon as the fame and fortune starts rolling in, the avaricious wife shows up at his door. She fires his manager and hires her secret lover in his place. Soon the fighter begins losing again. Just before the championship bout the old manager proves that his wife is being unfaithful. That is only the beginning of the end for the champ. ~allmovie.comRead More »