In Freaks, Thalberg and Browning populated a circus sideshow with a bearded lady, a human skeleton, a hermaphrodite, Siamese twins, simpering pinheads, and an armless, legless man. The hero is a little person named Hans (Harry Earles). The villain is a narcissistic strongman, Hercules (Henry Victor), who plots with the vain acrobat Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) to murder the frugal Hans—after she marries him.
