The Circus
Directed by:
Charlie ChaplinScreenplay:
Charlie ChaplinCinematography:
Roland TotherohComposer:
Charlie ChaplinCast:
Charlie Chaplin, Merna Kennedy, Henry Bergman, Albert Austin, Stanley Blystone, Heinie Conklin, Hugh Saxon, George Davis, Tiny Sandford, Jack P. Pierce (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
In the last film he made during the silent era, Charlie Chaplin revels in the art of the circus, paying tribute to the acrobats and pantomimists who inspired his virtuoso pratfalls. After being mistaken for a pickpocket, Chaplin’s Little Tramp flees into the ring of a traveling circus and soon becomes the star of the show, falling for the troupe’s bareback rider along the way. Despite its famously troubled production, this gag-packed comedy ranks among Chaplin’s finest, thanks to some of the most audacious set pieces of the director-performer’s career, including a close brush with a lion and a climactic tightrope walk with a barrelful of monkeys. Rereleased in 1969 with a new score by Chaplin, The Circus is an uproarious high-wire act that showcases silent cinema’s most popular entertainer at the peak of his comic powers. (Criterion)
(more)Reviews (4)
A traditionally excellent and entertaining Chaplin. Although his most elaborate works were yet to come, The Circus is a perfect example of the kind of intermediate stage between the lively shorts and the narratively sophisticated feature films that Charlie would make from 1930s. The story in this case is basic and unemotional, but everything from the original sets to the inclusion and arrangement of the stunts works superbly. 80%
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One can't help but wonder what was all possible, especially when it comes to the safety of actors. Insurance companies would probably be tearing their hair out, or they simply wouldn't insure the actors. Charlie Chaplin is once again excellent in this regard, and his act with the lion impressed me. At times, I was quite entertained, it was a pleasant caress to the soul that satire can evoke in me.
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Chaplin needlessly lingers here with an uninteresting plot and long prologues to the attractions. These aren't particularly breathtaking compared to Buster Keaton's suicide escapades, for example; rather they are unnecessarily drawn out. The bravura of the scene with the destruction of the magician's stage is obscured by the fact that the final stunts on the rope look rather artificial, overdone, and static. Plus I found the character of the Tramp kind of annoying and I tend to wish her life imprisonment for vagrancy even if it’s a matter of life and death. If the crumpling and discarding of the star at the end was indeed an act of anti-communist resistance, it's great to see it in a film whose theme is how the circus owner exploits everything around him, including his daughter, whom he regularly spanks, and the only way to humble him is to smash his face in and marry his daughter off to another guy.
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A poignant grotesque about the fact that making fun is no fun at all. Most of the gags, even from today's perspective, are very funny and brilliantly delivered, but I feel they somewhat overdid it after the excellent opening forty minutes.
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