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Freaks (1932 Film)
''Freaks'' (also re-released as ''The Monster Story'', ''Forbidden Love'', and ''Nature's Mistakes'') is a 1932 American pre-Code horror film produced and directed by Tod Browning, starring Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, and Roscoe Ates. ''Freaks'', originally intended as a vehicle for Lon Chaney, is set amongst the backdrop of a travelling French circus and follows a conniving trapeze artist who joins a group of carnival sideshow performers with a plan to seduce and murder a dwarf in the troupe to gain his inheritance. However, her plot proves to have dangerous consequences. The film is based on elements from the short story " Spurs" by Tod Robbins, first published in ''Munsey's Magazine'' in February 1923, with the rights being purchased by the studio, responsible by MGM art department chief Cedric Gibbons. Filmed in Los Angeles in the fall of 1931, some employees at MGM were discomfited by the presence of the actors portraying the "freaks" on set, and, other tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tod Browning
Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of various genres between 1915 and 1939, but was primarily known for horror films, and was often cited in the trade press as the Edgar Allan Poe of cinema. Browning's career spanned the silent film and sound film eras. He is known as the director of ''Dracula (1931 English-language film), Dracula'' (1931), ''Freaks (1932 film), Freaks'' (1932), and his silent film collaborations with Lon Chaney and Priscilla Dean. Early life Charles Albert Browning, Jr., was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the second son of Charles Albert and Lydia Browning. Charles Albert Sr., "a bricklayer, carpenter and machinist," provided his family with a middle-class and Baptists, Baptist household. Browning's uncle, the baseball star Pete Browning, Pete "Louisville Slug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and millions of books. In addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating a free and open Internet. , the Internet Archive holds over 35 million books and texts, 8.5 million movies, videos and TV shows, 894 thousand software programs, 14 million audio files, 4.4 million images, 2.4 million TV clips, 241 thousand concerts, and over 734 billion web pages in the Wayback Machine. The Internet Archive allows the public to upload and download digital material to its data cluster, but the bulk of its data is collected automatically by its web crawlers, which work to preserve as much of the public web as possible. Its web archiving, web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains hu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Doll Family
The Doll Family was an American quartet of sibling entertainers with dwarfism from Stolpen, Germany. They were popular performers in circuses and sideshows in the United States from the mid-1910s until their retirement in 1958. The family members—Gracie, Harry, Daisy and Tiny—also appeared briefly in films; they were best known as members of The Munchkins in the 1939 MGM film '' The Wizard of Oz''. Harry and Daisy, billed as Harry Earles and Daisy Earles respectively, both starred in the cult classic film ''Freaks''; Tiny also made a brief appearance in the film. Members History Early years The Doll family were four of seven children born to Amelia Emma Preusche and Gustav Schneider in Stolpen, Germany.. They were encouraged by their father to work in the entertainment field, taking advantage of their "hypopituitary" status. Kurt and Frieda were the first to migrate to California in 1916, after they met Bert W. Earles and his wife, who became their agents. The Earles h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lost Film
A lost film is a feature or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress. Conditions During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy of every American film to be deposited at the Library of Congress at the time of copyright registration, but the Librarian of Congress was not required to retain those copies: "Under the provisions of the act of March 4, 1909, authority is granted for the return to the claimant of copyright of such copyright deposits as are not required by the Library." A report created by Library of Congress film historian and archivist David Pierce claims: * 75% of original silent-era films have perished. * 14% of the 10,919 silent films released by major studios exist in their original 35 mm or other formats. * 11% survive only in full-length foreign versions or film formats of lesser image quality. Of the American sound films made from 1927 to 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siamese Twins
Conjoined twins – sometimes popularly referred to as Siamese twins – are twins joined ''in utero''. A very rare phenomenon, the occurrence is estimated to range from 1 in 49,000 births to 1 in 189,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence in Southwest Asia and Africa. Approximately half are stillborn, and an additional one-third die within 24 hours. Most live births are female, with a ratio of 3:1. Two theories exist to explain the origins of conjoined twins. The more generally accepted theory is ''fission'', in which the fertilized egg splits partially. The other theory, no longer believed to be the basis of conjoined twinning, is ''fusion'', in which a fertilized egg completely separates, but stem cells (which search for similar cells) find similar stem cells on the other twin and fuse the twins together. Conjoined twins share a single common chorion, placenta, and amniotic sac, although these characteristics are not exclusive to conjoined twins, as there are some monozyg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world's most populous megacities. Los Angeles is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits , Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The city of Los Angeles lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to it's east. It covers about , and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cedric Gibbons
Austin Cedric Gibbons (March 23, 1890 – July 26, 1960) was an Irish-American art director for the film industry. He also made a significant contribution to motion picture theater architecture from the 1930s to 1950s. Gibbons designed the Oscar statuette in 1928, but tasked the sculpting to George Stanley, a Los Angeles artist. He was nominated 39 times for the Academy Award for Best Production Design and won the Oscar 11 times, both of which are records. Early life Cedric Gibbons was born in Ireland in 1890 to Irish architect Austin P. Gibbons and American Veronica Fitzpatrick Simmons. The family moved to Manhattan after the birth of their third child. Cedric studied at the Art Students League of New York in 1911. He began working in his father's office as a junior draftsman, then in the art department at Edison Studios under Hugo Ballin in New Jersey in 1915. He was drafted and served in the US Navy Reserves during World War I at Pelham Bay in New York. Career Gibb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Munsey's Magazine
''Munsey's Weekly'', later known as ''Munsey's Magazine'', was a 36-page quarto United States, American magazine founded by Frank Munsey, Frank A. Munsey in 1889 and edited by John Kendrick Bangs. Frank Munsey aimed to publish "a magazine of the people and for the people, with pictures and art and good cheer and human interest throughout". Soon after its inception, the magazine was selling 40,000 copies a week. In 1891, ''Munsey's Weekly'' adopted a monthly schedule and was renamed ''Munsey's Magazine''. In October 1893, Munsey reduced the price of the magazine from 25 cents to 10 cents, which was greatly successful. By 1895, the magazine had a circulation of 500,000 a month. It included numerous illustrations (including many by the illustrator Charles Howard Johnson) and was attacked for its "half-dressed women and undressed statuary". Some outlets refused to stock the magazine as a result, but circulation continued to grow and by 1897 had reached 700,000 per month. Circulation b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tod Robbins
Clarence Aaron Robbins (25 June 1888 – May 10, 1949), billed as C.A Robbins and better known as Tod Robbins, was an American author of horror and mystery fiction, particularly novels and short story collections. Biography Robbins was born in Brooklyn, June 25, 1888. He attended Washington and Lee University ( Lexington, Virginia) and—along with Mark W. Sheafe (1884?–1949) and Thornton Whitney Allen (1890–1944)—wrote the college song "Washington and Lee Swing." Sheafe wrote the tune in 1905, Allen set the music down on paper in 1909 and Robbins provided the words. The completed version was published in 1910. Robbins authored two short story collections and several novels. His work often contains bizarre and frightening plots, sometimes influenced by writers like Oscar Wilde (Robbins' "The Living Portrait" is a homage to ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'')Brian Stableford, "Robbins, Tod", in David Pringle, ed., ''St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dwarfism
Dwarfism is a condition wherein an organism is exceptionally small, and mostly occurs in the animal kingdom. In humans, it is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than , regardless of sex; the average adult height among people with dwarfism is , although some individuals with dwarfism are slightly taller. ''Disproportionate dwarfism'' is characterized by either short limbs or a short torso. In cases of ''proportionate dwarfism'', both the limbs and torso are unusually small. Intelligence is usually normal, and most have a nearly normal life expectancy. People with dwarfism can usually bear children, though there are additional risks to the mother and child dependent upon the underlying condition. The most common and recognisable form of dwarfism in humans (comprising 70% of cases) is achondroplasia, a genetic disorder whereby the limbs are diminutive. Growth hormone deficiency is responsible for most other cases. Treatment depends on the underlying cause. Those w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sideshow
In North America, a sideshow is an extra, secondary production associated with a circus, carnival, fair, or other such attraction. Types There are four main types of classic sideshow attractions: *The Ten-in-One offers a program of ten sequential acts under one tent for a single admission price. The ten-in-one might be partly a freak show exhibiting "human oddities" (including "born freaks" such as midgets, giants or persons with other deformities, or "made freaks" like tattooed people, fat people or "human skeletons"- extremely thin men often "married" to the fat lady, like Isaac W. Sprague). However, for variety's sake, the acts in a ten-in-one would also include "working acts" who would perform magic tricks or daredevil stunts. In addition, the freak show performers might also perform acts or stunts, and would often sell souvenirs like "giant's rings" or "pitch cards" with their photos and life stories. The ten-in-one would often end in a "blowoff" or "ding," an extra act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Traveling Carnival
A traveling carnival (US English), usually simply called a carnival, or travelling funfair (UK English), is an amusement show that may be made up of amusement rides, food vendors, merchandise vendors, games of chance and skill, thrill acts, and animal acts. A traveling carnival is not set up at a permanent location, like an amusement park or funfair, but is moved from place to place. Its roots are similar to the 19th century circus with both being fitted-up in open fields near or in town and moving to a new location after a period of time. In fact, many carnivals have circuses while others have a clown aesthetic in their decor. Unlike traditional carnival celebrations, the North American traveling carnival is not tied to a religious observance. History In 1893, the Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition (also called the Chicago World's Fair) was the catalyst for the development of the traveling carnival. The Chicago World's Fair had an area that included rides, games of chan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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