Good evening.
Doctor X (1932) vs Freaks (1932)
Doctor XDirector: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster
VS
FreaksDirector: Tod Browning | Stars: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates
This poll is no longer accepting votes
Gooble-gobble.
All right, this was tougher than I thought it would be. Freaks was the hands-down favorite going into this match since it’s well known and I didn’t know anything about Doctor X. But then I watched Doctor X. And that movie has some seriously good visuals, reminiscent of German Expressionist stuff and a bit of film noir. Its big strike against it is a terrible, terrible protagonist — the newspaper reporter (Lee Tracy) whose only job is to be the (painfully bad) comic relief and (totally unconvincing) love interest for Fay Wray. It has about the same quality story line as Freaks does. Freaks is interesting because actual sideshow performers were hired to basically portray themselves, making the movie really a sideshow on film. To me, Doctor X is better because there’s an actual movie there, with creative visuals.