Freaks (Remastered) (1932)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Introduction-Notes-Special Message Prologue Audio Commentary-David Skal (Film Historian) Featurette-Freaks: The Sideshow Cinema Featurette-Alternate Endings
Rating
Year Of Production	1932
Running Time	59:32
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Tod Browning
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Wallace Ford Leila Hyams Olga Baclanova Roscoe Ates Henry Victor Harry Earles Daisy Earles Rose Dione Daisy Hilton Violet Hilton Schlitze Josephine Joseph Johnny Eck
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	None Given

    One of the most unsettling films ever to come out of Hollywood, Freaks could not have been made just two years later when the mandatory Production Code came into effect. In the early sound era up to 1934, filmmakers pushed the boundaries of taste and content to a level that rebounded on them like an overstretched rubber band, resulting in a proscriptive code that pushed cinema towards the depiction of a reality where, for example, married life was spent in separate beds and true love was consummated by a closed-mouth kiss.

    Following the success of horror films like Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931, many film studios looked towards macabre films as a means to arrest the slumping box office receipts that the Depression brought with it. MGM responded with two films. One was Kongo, a remake of the Lon Chaney vehicle West of Zanzibar. The other was Freaks, and MGM chose as director Tod Browning, who not only had directed West of Zanzibar and Dracula, but also had a reputation for bizarre, unusual films that looked at the extremities of the human experience. He worked extensively with Lon Chaney, their eleven film collaboration that included famous films like The Unknown, The Unholy Three and London After Midnight only ended by Chaney's early death from throat cancer in 1930.

    Most of these films were made for MGM although Dracula was filmed by Universal. Browning was asked by MGM executive Irving G. Thalberg to develop a horror film, and was apparently taken aback by his adaptation of a short story by Tod Robbins, though this did not prevent Thalberg from giving the project the green light.

    The film tells the story of a circus sideshow run by Madame Tetrallini somewhere in France. Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) is the main attraction of the circus, a tall blonde acrobat who amuses herself by stringing along Hans (Harry Earles), a midget. Cleopatra is involved with strongman Hercules (Henry Victor), and when they learn that Hans has inherited a fortune, they hatch a plan to steal the inheritance. But Cleopatra is unable to maintain the charade, and when the freaks learn of Cleopatra and Hercules' plans, they implement the unwritten code of the freak show.

    This brief synopsis misses out on several plot lines, for example that of the clown Phroso (Wallace Ford) and his fiancée Venus (Leila Hyams), and it also gives the impression that the film is a melodrama. Well, it does have a melodramatic plot, but it is eerily fascinating throughout and has a sense of heightened reality due to the use of real circus freaks, people who were attractions at carnivals and sideshows. There are two women with no arms, a man with no legs, and even a man with no limbs whatsoever, who remarkably can light his cigarette by getting a match out of a matchbox and lighting it, all with his mouth. One man is a human skeleton married to a bearded lady, and there are what was known then as "pinheads", people with microcephalic craniums. There is also the extraordinary-looking "bird woman".

    The film has an unsettling sexual subtext. The sight of the tall Cleopatra and the short Hans together is a little unnerving, as is the relationship involving the Siamese twins with two men. The scene where a suitor kisses one twin and the other responds to it is quite remarkable for a film of this vintage. It is slightly less remarkable to see Ed Brophy and Matt McHugh in tights. The sequence near the end where the freaks wreak their horrible revenge during a torrential rainstorm is a masterpiece of macabre cinema, but the tacked-on ending does not suit the film.

    The treatment of the so-called "freaks" in this film seems less exploitative than it could have been, though some will obviously object to it. In 1932, sideshows like this were not uncommon, so while people did not respond to the film positively, they would have been more familiar with people who looked like this than are we, who live in an era when medicine, birth control and surgery have reduced the frequency and visibility of people with such significant abnormalities. Even so, the film was a financial and critical failure on its release, and terminally damaged Browning's career to the extent that he only made a handful of films after this one. Withheld from official exhibition for decades after its initial release, Freaks was a mainstay of the underground film circuit, and came back to public notice in the 1960s. While it will not be to everyone's taste, this is a bizarre and disturbing film that deserves a wider audience.

Video

    The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, close to the original 1.37:1.

    Warners have obviously done their best with the available material, as this is a nicely contrasted and sharp transfer that gives a glimpse of the luminosity typical of nitrate prints. Detail generally is good, as is shadow detail, most noticeably during the gripping finale in the storm. This is of course a black and white film, with fairly solid blacks and whites, though the print material is not in the best condition. The epilogue looks to have been taken from duplicate material, as it is slightly less sharp and contrast is not so good. There is a variation in brightness between frames that results in flickering, though I did not find this disturbing.

    There were no noticeable film to video artefacts. There are however a lot of film artefacts, which occur with greater frequency as the film progresses. These are mostly white flecks and faint scratches, with some darker blotches cropping up occasionally. Flecking is more noticeable near reel changes, though there are no reel change markings present. Grain levels are good. There are occasional missing frames.

    Optional English subtitles are provided, which are in white text and quite readable. They seem to match the dialogue well, which is good as some of the audio is difficult to understand.

    While this is a dual-layered disc, the film only runs just under an hour and thus no layer change occurs during the film.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The default audio track is English Dolby Digital 1.0, with a separate commentary track as the only other audio stream.

    The audio is not in the best condition, with audible hiss and occasional crackling. Voices tend to sound thin and distant, not entirely unusual for a film of this era, but sometimes the dialogue is difficult to understand, especially that of Hans. This is probably as good as the audio has sounded since the original release of the film, so it would be churlish to complain too much.

    There is no credit for the music, which mainly consists of circus-like themes played under the dialogue with no real sense of it commenting on the action. There is, though, a subtle bit towards the end when Cleopatra is being confronted by the freaks, where a midget is playing the cor anglais solo from the beginning of Act III of Tristan und Isolde on what seems to be an ocarina. The music played during the end credits is quite out of step with the rest of the film.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    A nice selection of extras is on offer for this release.

Main Menu Audio

Introduction-Notes-Special Message Prologue (2:34)

    This is a scrolling text prologue screened with some release prints of the film, which basically attempts to set the film in context and deny any responsibility on the part of the studio for any offence caused. It is available for selection on both the main menu and the special features menu.

Audio Commentary-David Skal (Film Historian)

    This is an informative and detailed commentary, despite a few dead spots. We get to hear some more detailed information about the fates of the performers, and about the way the film was directed. Skal reads out some reviews and comments about the film from contemporary viewers, to give an idea of the reaction to it. A lot of the information in the commentary is also in the documentary, so it is probably best not to avail yourself of one immediately after the other.

    There were a couple of minor inaccuracies that I picked up. Skal states that Lon Chaney died from lung cancer. Technically speaking, he had throat and bronchial cancer due to a heavy smoking habit and died from a throat haemorrhage after a bout of pneumonia. He also seems to say that Tod Browning died in 1960, when he really died in 1962, though this may just have been the way he phrased that particular sentence.

Featurette-Freaks: The Sideshow Cinema (63:24)

    The disc comes with a documentary that is slightly longer than the main feature, and this seems to have been specially filmed for the DVD release. This is a mostly fascinating look at the film by a group of talking heads, illustrated with clips from this film and others. Apart from David Skal, there are a couple of sideshow entertainers and historians, one of whom is coincidentally named Todd Robbins, but appears to be unrelated to the original author of the story. There are also a couple of euphemistically-named "little people actors", including Jerry Maren, and a real-life bearded woman. The documentary covers the genesis, production and impact of the film, but the bulk of it is taken up with historical information about the "freaks" themselves, and this is the best part of it. It seems that a lot of the performers did not enjoy being in the film, though most of them had long and successful careers in show business. Optional subtitles are provided.

Featurette-Alternate Endings (5:57)

    This could well have been included in the above documentary. Three versions of the ending are shown: the one included in the main feature and two shorter ones. This is not really that interesting and I would not bother watching it again.

    The US Region 1 appears to be the same as the Region 4. Given the low price of the Region 4, I can see no reason to shop overseas.

    An important horror film from the 1930s given an excellent package in this release.

    The video quality is good considering the age and condition of the material.

    The audio quality is acceptable.

    The extras are informative and entertaining in their own right.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall