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 (2)
Plots(1)
Outside a circus ring the Ringmaster tells his stepdaughter she must go without supper because she missed the hoop during her act as a circus rider. He tells the clowns off because they did not get many laughs. Charlie, the tramp wanders round the sideshows. A pickpocket plants a wallet on him, but is caught by the police as he tries to get it back. The owner of the wallet sees the tramp with his property and sets the police onto him. They follow the tramp into a hall of mirrors. The pickpocket still tries to retrieve the wallet by following the tramp outside where there is a display of automatons. They pose as mechanical models to evade the police. Charlie uses the opportunity to repeatedly hit the pickpocket over the head. Once they realise Charlie is not a dummy the police chase him into the circus ring where the tramp gets caught up in a magician's act. The audience think he is very funny. He eventually escapes and falls asleep in a cart behind the ring. The Ringmaster finds him and offers him a job. Next morning he shares his breakfast with the girl who has had no breakfast. The tramp auditions for the Ringmaster but is slow to learn the art of comedy. He auditions in a William Tell act and a Barbershop act. He is given the sack and as he leaves he meets the girl and tells her he is leaving. Meanwhile a dispute has arisen with the property men who refuse to work, so the tramp gets a job taking things into the ring. He messes up the magician's act again and makes the audience laugh; the Ringmaster decides to keep him on as a property man.
As part of his duties Charlie has to look after the animals and while trying to blow a pill down a horse's throat, swallows it himself. Later the girl tells him he is the hit of the show but her stepfather overhears her and hits her. The tramp tells him that he will leave the circus if he does not stop hitting the girl and if he doesn't give him a raise. The ringmaster reluctantly agrees. A new arrival to the circus, Rex, a handsome tightrope walker, makes an immediate impression on the girl. Charlie overhears her telling the gypsy fortune-teller that she has fallen in love with Rex and after this revelation Charlie gets less and less laughs in his act. After meeting Rex and watching his act, the tramp decides to emulate his rival and takes up tightrope walking. One night Rex does not turn up to do his act so the tramp has to go on instead. He pays a man five dollars to let him wear a safety belt. The tramp goes on to do the act but halfway through the safety belt comes off. The tramp, realising this, is terrified and has to finish the act hampered by three monkeys who have got into the Ring. Afterwards, he finds the Ringmaster hitting his stepdaughter again. He hits the Ringmaster and is fired. That night at his camp, the girl joins him and asks him to let her stay. Charlie leaves her there while he returns to the circus to tell Rex that he can do nothing to help the girl. Rex and the girl get married with the tramp as their only witness. They return to the circus after the wedding, and Rex says that he will return only if Charlie also returns. The Ringmaster agrees and gives the tramp the end wagon as the circus is pulling out of town. The tramp looks wistfully at the newlyweds and decides that three is a crowd - he will remain behind. After a while he shrugs and walks jauntily off in the opposite direction. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (5)
One can't help but wonder what all was possible, especially concerning the safety attempts for the actors. Insurance companies would probably be tearing their hair out today, or they simply wouldn't insure the actors. Charlie Chaplin is once again excellent in this regard, and his act with the lion really got to me. At times, I quite enjoyed it, like a nice soul caress that slapstick humor can evoke in me.
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The Circus was my first encounter with Charlie Chaplin as an actor, and indeed as a director. Regardless of the year of production, this comedy is incredibly funny and brisk, it made me laugh out loud more than once. I think the scenes with the horse (or donkey, or whatever it was) and the Tramp vs. the Lion amused me the most. All in all, a very well made film that managed to engage and entertain me.
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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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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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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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