Freaks: Cinema of the Bizarre

by Werner Adrian

The cinema grew of out the fairground and its sideshows. Freaks were always put on show in travelling fairs—giants and dwarfs, thin men and fat ladies. Siamese twins and people with two heads, man-beasts and fish-women. Out of this tradition, grew the Cinema of the Bizarre, with its masterpieces from The Phantom of the Opera to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, from The Man who Laughs to Tod Browning's Freaks. The monster came before the movie, but the movie spread the monster everywhere.

110 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976