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I Am Not a Freak

(1987) Directed by Kirby Dick

By Tom BakerPublished about a year ago Updated about a year ago 5 min read
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Old-fashioned VHS cover for I Am Not a Freak (1987)

I Am Not a Freak (1987) is a documentary I first saw in 1988 or 89, having rented it on VHS cassette back when there was a video store between Gas City and Marion, situated smack dab in the middle. El and Dubya it was called.

The video box had an image of a man in a hard hat, who seemingly had another FACE growing out of his own. He appeared to be, however, walking down the street calmly to work perhaps.

Being scared of deformity in those days, I rented it and was pleasingly surprised that none f the people involved were in the least frightening. They were sad, they were courageous; they were people you might pity. However, pity was NOT what these people wanted. They were looking for dignity all their own; they were searching for LIFE.

The man in the pic was Robert Melvin, Coney Island's "Two-Faced Boy," who, during the depression, was earning an astounding thousand dollars a week, exhibiting himself all across America. The video shows pictures of Robert and his presumed late wife, in the 1940s and 50s. The video documents him having a picnic lunch with his children and grandchildren, all normal-looking. "People may criticize us for getting married, but I don't believe in divorce," Robert told his Bride-Soon-To-Be. Their marriage would last thirty-five years.

Sam Early, like Johnny Eck, had no legs, walking on his hands. His adopted mother, Evelyn, explains that Sam, an auto-mechanic, was an adventurous man who tried everything: swimming (it shows this) horseback riding, etc. "The greatest gift in the world was Sam," says Evelyn. But sadly she adds, "He doesn't have a future." This is because of his diseased kidneys. More hopeful, she states, "He takes it one day at a time." Sam, for his part, said, "People have cried when they've seen me...I don't know how to deal with that...If there's something I want to try, I'll do it."

The film has a section of photographs (the narration is by late Amadeus actor Richard Frank) of famous carnival folk: Lionel the Lion-Faced Man, the Hilton Sisters, Chang, and Eng Bunker, and the Tocci Brothers, among others; it begins with the train station scene from David Lynch's 1980 film of The Elephant Man.

There is a curious, spliced-in Chinese documentary of a man with a parasitic twin growing from the side of his face, in a small province, where the surgeons successfully remove a parasitic twin with a "rudimentary brain." One of the more shocking segments is, because of the obvious physical connection between the two. (For instance, when the man moves his lips, so does the unformed twin.) The operation to separate these two is shown to be a success.

(We get to see him working alone, also, the object of loathing and fear in his village. At birth, his father was considering killing him. his mother begged him to spare the child's life.)

Peter Risch, the late midget actor, is shown driving a hot car through a Los Angeles suburb. He appeared in any number of roles in small television and low-budget films, among them Troll (1985), although he was often unrecognizable in costume. "When they need someone really tiny, they don't have much of a choice," he laughs. He was once the drummer for a successful rock group, and was a real "party animal." We get to see him prepare dinner using a ladder and different devices and using an old-fashioned pay phone by manipulating the receiver with his cane. It was thought, at the time, that he was the world's smallest man.

Loys, a six-hundred-pound woman, is taken care of by her daughter, one of her four "living children," the rest having been miscarriages. Her life is limited to lying in bed, her breathing pitiful and labored. It must have been quite a task to care for her. "You have to ask for every drink of water, for every bite of food...I've tried all the diets. I even tried not eating anything, but that doesn't work at all. You really get desperate."

Sadly, a photo is shown of Loys as a normal teenager, circa 1960 or so. "I use to have so much more fun then," she reminisces. Her pain becomes the pain of the viewer. No one could help but be moved by the tragedy of Loys' life, or the rugged and loyal devotion of her daughter. The segment ends with a hopeful surgeon confident he can help Loys through gastric bypass surgery attain a weight that will not kill her.

Finally, we have Mickey Hays, also an actor, who was in the picture The Aurora Encounter (1986) with cock-eyed actor Jack Elam. Cast as the "Alien," the viewer may wonder about the slight whiff of exploitation in this: Mickey Hays was afflicted with progeria, a disease that rapidly ages children until they look like little old men and women. It doesn't seem to have affected Mickey though, who is a bright hopeful boy. "Everyone is going to die. When it comes it comes...there's nothing you can do to stop that."

Mickey had known tragedy his entire life, apparently; he brought candy each day to the graveside of his little sister, according to his grandmother. He wanted to be buried next to her.

Making the film, he became fast friends with the gruff, grizzled Elam, and the two are shown reuniting for this documentary. Elam seems to have genuinely cared for Mickey, and his charm and brashness, and the relationship between the two are rather poignant. In the end, we see the both of them walking away, Mickey's hands in his pockets. Jack is going to take him out to dinner. At the finish of the production of The Aurora Encounter, Jack picked Mickey up and told him goodbye, with tears in his eyes, according to his grandmother.

Finally, the four actors in the film that can make appearances, as it were, "in the flesh," are shown walking along a beach. Contemplating the sea, from which ALL life emerged eons ago. The viewer may wonder about the inscrutable methods by which God metes out the destiny of individual men; some he seemingly overburdens with an abundance of blessings; others he simply burdens. As Above, so Below. We can never divine the Will of God, as it is vast, inscrutable, and beyond our measure.

But the lives of these people are not to be pitied. Though they are all dead now, during their brief span upon this rocky, inhospitable globe, they faced adversity with a courage that could make fate tremble. And, to slightly paraphrase something Treves said of Joseph Carey Merrick, the famous "Elephant Man," who was more severely deformed and physically distorted than any of these folks, they "shuffled off this mortal burden, so that they felt it no more."

I Am Not a Freak (1987)

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About the Creator

Tom Baker

Author of Haunted Indianapolis, Indiana Ghost Folklore, Midwest Maniacs, Midwest UFOs and Beyond, Scary Urban Legends, 50 Famous Fables and Folk Tales, and Notorious Crimes of the Upper Midwest.: http://tombakerbooks.weebly.com

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