The Elephant Man
London Hospital surgeon Frederick Treves finds John Merrick, who is severely deformed, in a Victorian freak show in London's East End. Behind his looks, there is revealed a person of intelligence and sensitivity. With the help of kindly Dr. Frederick Treves, Merrick attempts to regain the dignity he lost.
27 April 1954, Pasadena, California, USA
19 September 1946, Chichester, Sussex, England, UK
May, 1943
1 June 1955, Colchester, England, UK
16 June 1938, Liverpool, England, UK
September 16, 2014
...at its best when the story and period trappings serve Lynch's vision, and vice versa.February 21, 2014
Lynch shows a weakness in this film that isn't present in just about any of his others: Sentimentality.April 30, 2008
The picture itself is a strange trade-off between Lynch's personal themes -- the night world of obscure, disturbing sexual obsessions -- and the requirements of a middlebrow message movie.January 26, 2006
A marvellous movie, shot in stunning black-and-white by Freddie Francis.April 22, 2014
Lynch's powerful depiction of Merrick (played by John Hurt) moves a viewer from revulsion and fear to empathy and tenderness. That's the very movement of the story itself.October 23, 2004
I kept asking myself what the film was really trying to say about the human condition as reflected by John Merrick, and I kept drawing blanks.April 30, 2008
Director David Lynch has created an eerily compelling atmosphere in recounting a hideously deformed man's perilous life in Victorian England.April 22, 2014
This stylish, poignant drama is probably the closest director David Lynch has got to the mainstream outside of the disastrous Dune.April 22, 2014
This is a tale of redemption and transcendence, of the hunchback of London Hospital, of the noble phantom who wanted to go to the opera, of Beauty and the Beast.January 02, 2011
Heartbreaking drama isn't for sensitive viewers.