Cast: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates, Henry Victor, Harry Earles, Daisy Earles, Rose Dione, Daisy Hilton, Violet Hilton. Screenplay: Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon, based on a story by Clarence Aaron "Tod" Robbins. Cinematography: Merritt B. Gerstad. Art direction: Cedric Gibbons, Merrill Pye. Film editing: Basil Wrangell.
Possibly the most unorthodox film ever made by a major Hollywood studio, let alone one made by MGM, a studio known for glossy entertainments. It was a kind of disaster when it was first released, subjected to censorship and deep cuts before being re-released, and even then widely panned, derided, and snubbed by critics and audiences. It could almost certainly not have been made after the introduction of the Production Code. It's a unique and unclassifiable movie that's usually treated as a horror film, but not easily filed away in that category. Its acceptance today as a classic, deserving its place in the National Film Registry as one of the most important American films, is largely the result of changing attitudes toward human diversity and difference, including the rejection of "eugenics," the pseudoscience that promoted the idea that only those deemed physically and mentally superior should be allowed to breed. As a movie, it's sometimes not particularly well acted and the central plot -- the trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) marries the dwarf Hans (Harry Earles) and then poisons him to try to get her hands on his inheritance -- is trite, though Cleopatra's comeuppance is effectively gruesome to say the least. But the movie is atmospherically staged and filmed, and the central theme of our common humanity prevails.
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