Freaks, at Garfield Park Arts Center

Film historian Eric Grayson will screen the 1932 “pre-code” film, Freaks, at the Garfield Park Arts Center on Saturday, March 11, at 7 p.m. The film “managed to offend everyone,” according to Grayson, and it was effectively banned until the 1970s.

Films such as Freaks helped bring about the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code. This film stars Olga Baclanova, Harry Earles, and Wallace Ford.  A beautiful trapeze artist (Baclanova) learns that the midget (Harry Earles) in the circus freak show has inherited money.  She hatches a plan to marry him, but, in doing so, she risks violating the code of the freaks.

Director Tod Browning, after his triumph with Dracula (1931), caused such an uproar with Freaks that it remained unseen for more than four decades.