Joseph (John) Merrick's speech was never as audible as shown in the film, and several operations were needed before he could speak at all. Even after that, Frederick Treves often had to "translate" what Merrick said because the majority of people still had problems understanding him. [Probably changed to simplify the storytelling, but still inaccurate]. See more...
Mel Brooks was Executive Producer but was uncredited so people wouldn't think the movie was a comedy. See more...
Directed by David Lynch, starring Anthony Hopkins, John Gielgud, John Hurt (add more)
Genres: Biography, Drama, History
Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.
Throughout the film, Merrick's first name is given as "John". His name was actually Joseph. [That's not a mistake. In real life, Dr. Treves constantly made the mistake of calling him John. Anyone who calls him John in the movie, doesn't know better, because Treves introduced Merrick to them.]
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