TUBI CONTINUED… EVEN DWARFS STARTED SMALL (1971) ***

After spending the first couple days of this year-long column watching crap like Terror Train 2, After School Special, and Amityville Karen, I wanted to desperately switch gears and check out something by a distinguished director.  In this case, the great Werner Herzog.  That’s the beauty of Tubi.  They have just about every kind of movie imaginable at your disposal.  It’s that kind of diverse programming that I hope to feature throughout this column. 

Little people on a prison farm in the middle of nowhere stage an uprising when the warden takes an inmate hostage.  They retaliate by cutting the phone wire and proceed to overrun the place.  When they’re not busy trying to rescue their pal, the delinquent dwarfs spend their downtime stealing trucks and motorcycles, getting into food fights, holding cockfights, and generally making a ruckus. 

Only a guy like Herzog could make a movie like this.  It basically feels like a cross between Freaks and Escape from Alcatraz, with a little bit of Night of the Living Dead thrown in there for good measure.  (Or maybe The Terror of Tiny Town by way of The Shawshank Redemption, it’s hard to say.)  Herzog also gives us plenty of oddball scenes along the way.  The part where two of the dwarf ladies eat their scabs feels like something out of a John Waters flick, and the stuff with the dead animals has a Mondo movie vibe.  

Despite the general sense of unpleasantness, there still manages to be an odd sweetness about the film.   I’m specifically thinking of the scene where two dwarf lovers are unable to make love because the man can’t get into the regular-sized bed.  This kind of whiplash in tone kind of makes Even Dwarfs Started Small hard to pin down, but it definitely is a unique viewing experience.   

Herzog resists the temptation to “explain” just what’s going on.  However, he gives us plenty of scenes dripping with symbolism, so we at least know what it’s “about”.  Such shots include chickens picking maggots off the carcasses of other dead chickens, a driverless truck endlessly going around in circles, and the heartbreaking image of piglets furiously trying to suckle their dead mother.  

This is one of Herzog’s most famous works.  I don’t know if I can call it one of my favorites, but it certainly has its moments, even if it doesn’t quite work as a whole.  If anything, it’s proof there’s more on Tubi than just a bunch of fake Amityville movies.