The Strangest Cast of Half Humans Ever Assembled!

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, Frances O'Connor, Peter Robinson, Olda Roderick, Koo Koo, Prince Randian

DML Rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ - great

"You laughed at them, shuddered at them. And, yet, but for the accident of birth, you might be one as they are. They did not ask to be brought into the world. But, into the world they came. Their code is a law unto themselves: offend one and you offend them all." – Carnival Barker

Why watch this? This classic film is both terrifying and extremely compassionate.

Plot Summary: A beautiful trapeze artist named Cleopatra seduces a wealthy little person named Hans in a traveling circus, with the secret intention of murdering him for his inheritance with her lover, the strongman Hercules. After her cruel intentions are revealed at the wedding banquet, the circus performers conspire to stop the injustice. Ultimately, they exact their vengeance upon the two traitors in a climactic and shocking turn of events.

Dad's Preview: Stirring controversy upon its release, this unique, and sometimes disturbing, film explores the carnival sideshow world of freaks and monsters. It is clear to me that early critics never spent a second around inmates at a state school or patients in a ward for those with physical abnormalities. Those reviewers, akin to the film's antagonists Cleopatra and Hercules, considered these circus folk to be below them; mere grotesque monsters to be laughed at and taken advantage of. Director Browning understood the global prejudices at play, and his film offers the possibility that these human beings have the same needs we all do. Those who can't see that, are the real monster in the story.  

Tod Browning; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer