Episode 163: The Elephant Man (1980)

This week at The Film Club we’re celebrating the month of September Dean’s birthday month with one of his favorite Directors! September is all about David Lynch movies and we’re starting off the month with one of his greatest films, The Elephant Man. The film takes place in late 19th century London where we meet surgeon Frederick Treves who is wandering through a Victorian Freak Show and comes across an exhibit that is being guarded by police. Frederick pays the owner of the exhibit to see “The Elephant Man” and discovers John Merrick who is severely deformed and being abused by Mr. Bytes the exhibit owner. Frederick is able to convince Mr. Bytes to let him take John to his hospital so he can receive an examination, Bytes becomes enraged when John returns to him and beats him so badly Bytes is forced to return John to Frederick’s hospital. While John is recovering at the hospital Frederick learns that John is able to speak and write. John comes out of his shell more as time passes and begins encountering people of high society who have read about his story in the newspaper. Although it’s not just high society that have read about John, a man named Jim is a night porter at the hospital and begins to torment John while concocting a plan to charge people from his local pub to see John in his hospital apartment. This plan by Jim is overheard by Mr. Bytes and he uses this opportunity to kidnap John. Frederick discovers that John is missing and begins his hunt to bring John back home. Join us for this emotional guest episode as we dive into the world of The Elephant Man.