The Show - by Tod Browning (1927)

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The Show - by Tod Browning (1927)

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The Show - by Tod Browning (1927)

A Hungarian carnival troupe follows a young girl who reforms a tearaway after her old suitor tried to kill him with a poisonous lizard.

John Gilbert is Cock Robin, a lively and dynamic carny who rings very true in Gilbert's portrayal. He plays the character like a coiled spring, oozing arrogant charisma and ready to either kill or blow with the wind at a whim. He's half hero but when he strikes a woman we're not surprised in the slightest. He presents the freak show, fake this time unlike the awesome reality of Freaks, which is unfortunate. I'd loved to have seen real freaks that approximate to Zela the half lady, Arachnida the human spider and Neptuna, the queen of the mermaids, let alone the Living Hand of Cleopatra who handles the tickets! Robin also appears in his show's chief attraction, as John the Baptist, here called Jokanaan, in a scene depicting his beheading at the request of Salome after her dance for Herod. Here Browning shows us how the fakery works, and yet it's still done very believably indeed.

There's a plot in here somewhere too, having to do with the money of Konrad Driskai, a sheep farmer who has just sold his flock in Budapest and then been murdered for the take. Maybe the surname means unlucky thirteen in some Eastern European language or other. Lionel Barrymore plays the man behind the theft, a character called the Greek who will stop at nothing to get the money. However his timing was far less effective than that of Robin on stage, as Driskai's daughter Lena had the bankroll at the time and it quickly ends up with Robin who has been courting her on the sly.

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The Show - by Tod Browning (1927)

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The Show - by Tod Browning (1927)

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The Show - by Tod Browning (1927)

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The Show - by Tod Browning (1927)

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The Show - by Tod Browning (1927)

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The Show - by Tod Browning (1927)

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The Show - by Tod Browning (1927)

Close