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The story

The story is as simple as a fairy tale, running only a little over one
hour of screen time. A dapper midget named Hans (Harry Earles) feels a
forbidden love for a beautiful trapeze artist, Cleopatra (Olga
Baclanova), whose "normal" exterior belies a cruel and callous heart. She
and her scheming boyfriend, Hercules the strongman (Henry Victor), plot
to marry the little man for his great fortune, then poison him. Midgets
are not strong. No one would miss him, would they?

In one of the movie's most unnerving sequences, Hans' freakish companions
gather for the wedding banquet pounding the table and chanting, "Gooble-
gobble, gooble-gobble, we accept her, we accept her, one of us, one of
us." A grinning dwarf (Angelo Rossitto) passes a wine goblet from one to
another and they each sip, whipping themselves into a joyous frenzy which
is disrupted by Cleopatra pouring the contents of the goblet over the
dwarf's head and laughing at him.

Cleopatra makes the foolish mistake of mocking their efforts to bring her
into their fold and openly expresses her disgust at these abominations.
She then casually flirts with Hercules right in front of poor little
Hans, and slips some poison into his champagne. Little does she know that
her every action is being watched by the legion of freaks, who plot their
brutal revenge.

Review by Jeremiah Kipp

 

Tod Browning poses with  some of the freaks.

 

 

Hans (Harry Earles) with Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova).

 

 

The freaks make Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) one of them.

The End