Tod Browning's somewhat overvalued shocker, set amid the segregated population of a carnival sideshow. Stiff, heavy-handed, preachy, and often, with its primitive 1930 soundtrack, inaudible; but also curious, compassionate, and unsettling. Certainly not one of Irving Thalberg's run-of-the-mill projects for MGM.
Mad scientist stuff, having to do with a wheelchair-bound, black-gloved Pavlovian who habitually cracks his knuckles and performs frontal lobotomies on whoever checks into his sanatorium for a weekend of rest and relaxation. Knowledgeably eclectic and quirkily humorous, but in the long run stunted and disappointing, particularly the late-arriving monster …
Another labor of lunacy from the maker of El Topo — and his temperature would appear to have not come down any in the prior two decades. There's a dwarf, a knife-thrower, a tattooed lady, a white-faced deaf-mute, an elephant with a nosebleed (soon followed by an elephant funeral with …
Bela Lugosi's classic turn as the cruel Count, in English, and then in Spanish! Directed by Tod Browning of Freaks fame. Black and white.