A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
Direction
Browning's real circus background bleeds into every frame.
Production
Casting actual sideshow performers — unprecedented, never repeated.
Writing
The 'one of us' chant — cinema's most unsettling wedding toast.
Director
Tod Browning
Harry Earles
Hans
Olga Baclanova
Cleopatra
Daisy Earles
Frieda
Henry Victor
Hercules
Wallace Ford
Phroso
Leila Hyams
Venus
Roscoe Ates
Roscoe
Angelo Rossitto
Angeleno
Jerry Austin
Knife-Throwing Dwarf (uncredited)
Daisy Hilton
Siamese Twin
Violet Hilton
Siamese Twin
Josephine Joseph
Half Woman-Half Man
Johnny Eck
Half Boy
Frances O'Connor
Armless Girl
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Tod Browning ran away to join the circus at 16 — the 'freaks' were his former colleagues, not hires. Harry and Daisy Earles were already famous as the Doll Family.
US
