The three films included on the Criterion Collection’s Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers collectively suggest a miniature narrative of Browning’s evolution as a filmmaker. Though this two-disc set offers but a dip of the toe into Browning’s work, it’s governed by a persuasive through line. Here we get a film, 1925’s The Mystic, that’s rich in promise and less personal than the other two, one a perverse masterwork, 1927’s The Unknown, that’s criminally underseen by contemporary audiences, and the other a cult classic, 1932’s Freaks, that’s too often discussed in terms of its notoriety. Watching these films together offers a sketch of an artist’s sensibility reaching fruition, as a fine-grained empathy rises to the fore.
Browning’s affinity for outcasts has been well-documented and is discussed at length in the supplements included with this set, particularly in a new interview with author...
Browning’s affinity for outcasts has been well-documented and is discussed at length in the supplements included with this set, particularly in a new interview with author...
- 10/18/2023
- by Chuck Bowen
- Slant Magazine
"Freaks" is one of the most impactful films ever made about humanity's cruelty and the power of solidarity. It tells the story of a beautiful but conniving trapeze artist named Cleopatra who plans to seduce and murder Hans, a circus sideshow performer and a person of short stature, for his inheritance. Director Tod Browning's dark film was a critical and box office failure during its 1932 release because of its unflinching depiction of persons with disabilities, causing it to fade into obscurity for many years.
Today, many critics debate whether or not "Freaks" is an exploitative product of its time or actually sympathetic towards the sideshow characters. It spotlights persons with all sorts of disabilities such as dwarfism (the siblings Harry and Daisy Earles), sacral agenesis (Johnny Eck), conjoined twins (Daisy and Violet Hilton), microcephaly (Schlitzie), and more. Yet at the same time, the film contains terrifying scenes where the...
Today, many critics debate whether or not "Freaks" is an exploitative product of its time or actually sympathetic towards the sideshow characters. It spotlights persons with all sorts of disabilities such as dwarfism (the siblings Harry and Daisy Earles), sacral agenesis (Johnny Eck), conjoined twins (Daisy and Violet Hilton), microcephaly (Schlitzie), and more. Yet at the same time, the film contains terrifying scenes where the...
- 9/6/2022
- by Caroline Madden
- Slash Film
If there are ‘freaks’ on display, they are not the versatile performers to whom this 1932 movie’s title appears to allude
Tod Browning’s 1932 tale of love and deception among the members of a carnival sideshow was banned for years by the BBFC on the grounds that it “exploited for commercial reasons the deformed people that it claimed to dignify”. Today, Browning’s sympathies are clear; if there are “freaks” on display here, they are not the versatile performers to whom the title seems to allude. Now accepted as a modern classic, Freaks boasts a memorable turn by Johnny Eck that would inspire the casting of the drones from Doug Trumbull’s sentimental 70s sci-fi charmer Silent Running. As Trumbull recalled: “Here’s this remarkable, beautiful guy, with this amazing agility. Not once do you feel horrified. You are amazed and respectful at his adjustment.”
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Tod Browning’s 1932 tale of love and deception among the members of a carnival sideshow was banned for years by the BBFC on the grounds that it “exploited for commercial reasons the deformed people that it claimed to dignify”. Today, Browning’s sympathies are clear; if there are “freaks” on display here, they are not the versatile performers to whom the title seems to allude. Now accepted as a modern classic, Freaks boasts a memorable turn by Johnny Eck that would inspire the casting of the drones from Doug Trumbull’s sentimental 70s sci-fi charmer Silent Running. As Trumbull recalled: “Here’s this remarkable, beautiful guy, with this amazing agility. Not once do you feel horrified. You are amazed and respectful at his adjustment.”
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- 6/14/2015
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
Dread Central hopped a flight to Las Vegas, Nevada, on Thursday, October 3, in order to cover the opening of the haunt attraction Fright Dome at Adventuredome at Circus Circus, and we came back with not only a celebrity-filled gallery from the black carpet but also a report!
Arriving to the gusty Fright Dome carpet, we were beset by a menagerie of scare actors hired by Fright Dome creator and owner Jason Egan, who in true Tod Browning fashion had employed (among the requisite clowns and chainsaw-wielding madmen) individuals with actual physical anomalies, which were accentuated by entirely professional makeups. In addition to the duo of Johnny Eck-like young women with truncated torsos (who were made up as zombies and dashed about the carpet using their hands as locomotion), another actor sported a gruesome facial makeup which served to highlight his entirely empty optical orb (the result of sinus cancer,...
Arriving to the gusty Fright Dome carpet, we were beset by a menagerie of scare actors hired by Fright Dome creator and owner Jason Egan, who in true Tod Browning fashion had employed (among the requisite clowns and chainsaw-wielding madmen) individuals with actual physical anomalies, which were accentuated by entirely professional makeups. In addition to the duo of Johnny Eck-like young women with truncated torsos (who were made up as zombies and dashed about the carpet using their hands as locomotion), another actor sported a gruesome facial makeup which served to highlight his entirely empty optical orb (the result of sinus cancer,...
- 10/8/2013
- by Sean Decker
- DreadCentral.com
Everybody loves a good controversy! If you don’t, you’re a boring fart. Controversial movies have caused disgust, moral outrage and titillation since the very invention of cinema, all those years ago. One only has to look at the stink D W Griffiths made with his epic films Intolerance and Birth of a Nation.
It pays to have a little controversy in your film, a little rant or whine in the Daily Mail can have salacious film fans rushing to buy the condemned films in droves. It can elevate a crappy or mediocre film into culthood or it can uncover some marvellous little gems that may have gone uncovered were it not for someone kicking up a moral fuss.
The movies in my list have been praised and condemned in equal measures. Some of them on their release were so controversial they were nearly kicked into hell. However, over time,...
It pays to have a little controversy in your film, a little rant or whine in the Daily Mail can have salacious film fans rushing to buy the condemned films in droves. It can elevate a crappy or mediocre film into culthood or it can uncover some marvellous little gems that may have gone uncovered were it not for someone kicking up a moral fuss.
The movies in my list have been praised and condemned in equal measures. Some of them on their release were so controversial they were nearly kicked into hell. However, over time,...
- 2/1/2013
- by Clare Simpson
- Obsessed with Film
Film Forum is freakin' out with a 10-film salute to Tod Browning (1880-1962), the carnival barker turned film maker with a taste for the macabre.
The flicks will unreel as Monday-night double features through June 8.
"Freaks" (1932), Browning's most notorious work, kicks off the series tomorrow.
Rarely shown and banned in Britain for 30 years, it is set in a circus sideshow featuring "nature's mistakes," played by real-life freaks: the co-joined Hilton sisters (no relation to you know who), Pinheads Pip and Zip, the Armless Wonder, Frances the Turtle Girl,...
The flicks will unreel as Monday-night double features through June 8.
"Freaks" (1932), Browning's most notorious work, kicks off the series tomorrow.
Rarely shown and banned in Britain for 30 years, it is set in a circus sideshow featuring "nature's mistakes," played by real-life freaks: the co-joined Hilton sisters (no relation to you know who), Pinheads Pip and Zip, the Armless Wonder, Frances the Turtle Girl,...
- 5/10/2009
- by By V.A. MUSETTO
- NYPost.com
Remember the Crazy4Cult pop culture art show we wrote about back in August? Well Gallery 1988 has released some new limited edition prints from Alex Pardee’s Cult Series. Pictured above (click to enlarge), The Cult Series features Baseball Furie #1, Edward Scissorhands, Ash, Sloth, Johnny Eck, and Cop #4.
Each character is printed on 8×10 giclee archival paper, signed by t00he artist (photo below), and is limited to 50. Available while supplies last - $40 each or $200 for the set of 6. To order, e-mail gallery1988@aol.com, call them at (323) 937 - 7088, or just come on in to their Los Angeles — 7020 Melrose Ave from 11-6 Tuesday through Saturday or 12-4 Sunday. Tell Jensen that /Film sent you.
Cool Stuff is a daily feature of slashfilm.com. Know of any geekarific creations or cool products which should be...
Each character is printed on 8×10 giclee archival paper, signed by t00he artist (photo below), and is limited to 50. Available while supplies last - $40 each or $200 for the set of 6. To order, e-mail gallery1988@aol.com, call them at (323) 937 - 7088, or just come on in to their Los Angeles — 7020 Melrose Ave from 11-6 Tuesday through Saturday or 12-4 Sunday. Tell Jensen that /Film sent you.
Cool Stuff is a daily feature of slashfilm.com. Know of any geekarific creations or cool products which should be...
- 12/19/2008
- by Peter Sciretta
- Slash Film
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