Tod Brownings Freaks - Movie Review Example

The film was revolting as it illustrated a horrible revenge sequence by the Freaks on those who had wronged them. Starring an array of real-life disabled people including midgets, a legless man, an armless woman, and other such "freaks", the movie was so disgustingly terrifying that "some of the preview audience that several women ran screaming from the cinema, and the major distributors refused to handle it." The film was then unheard of for decades and was completely banned in Britain till 1963.

Completely rewrittenThe movie can be used as a symbol of the fate of Russians in Hollywood. It must first be understood that Russians had very limited success in Hollywood with the possible exception of Kirk Douglas whose parents were Russian Jewish immigrants. But this was because Douglas had no accent issues as he was trained at American Academy. However, the rest of the actors of Russian descent had marginalized success in Hollywood as their accent forever sealed their fate and they were limited to either smaller side roles or at best character actors.

They couldn't make it to the mainstream roles. Freaks (1932) is a sign of that fate. The movie is symbolic of what happened to those Russians who tried to enter Hollywood. In this movie, the only Russian born actress, is the leading female character of Cleopatra played by immensely beautiful Olga Baclanova? Baclanova had arrived in the USA with the Moscow Theatre group. Her first love was a stage and that is what she was doing when a role in Freaks was offered. However, while the movie was banned and discarded for a long time, Olga was remembered for her role as a cunning and manipulative trapeze artist in the film who meets a very ghastly end.

Though Baclanova was by far the only Russian star who had managed to make it this far, her role in Freaks was symbolic of the fate of Russians in Hollywood. In the movies, she plans to marry a midget Hans, played by Harry Earles, for his money. Hans doesn't know of the plan and is delighted to be able to marry a beautiful normal woman. However, when he and the other "freaks" discover the true intentions behind this marriage, they plan to maim Cleopatra to make her "one of us". This deformity is symbolic of what happened to most Russians.

They tried to enter the film industry with varying degrees of success but all failed to make it to the mainstream role. This is quite strange because Hollywood has given chance to some other foreigner actors but in all these cases, the success was limited. The hugely successful people in Hollywood are all either totally Americans or actors with immigrants parents who spoke English like natives and looked like them too so no one could tell the difference. The imagery of deformity is a classic sign of fate as one writes opines, "being a foreign actor in Hollywood became both a blessing and a curse.

Those who learned English successfully made the transition to talkies, but their accents forever closed the door to mainstream stardom. Desired for their exotic qualities, yet marginalized by the language barrier, they were relegated to cameo roles. Making the best of the situation, they carved out the only niche available to foreigners in Hollywood, that of the character actor."