The Circus: SE

Easily the most troubled of Chaplin’s films, The Circus is also, surprisingly, amongst his best. Entirely underrated as a film, here it sees our old friend the Little Tramp being pursued into a circus fairground by the police who believe he is a pickpocket and thief. He isn’t, but it does land him a job when he makes a bored audience laugh at his escapist antics.

While on site, he meets the mistreated daughter of the ringleader and falls in love with her. However, she has feelings for the new highwire act, Rex ('King of the Air') and there are naturally many comedic moments as the Tramp tries to win his lady love.

"I’m running away from the circus!"

Suffering heavily through his first divorce at the time, Chaplin here manages to find the simple joy of the fairground while also managing some of his most dangerous and funny stunts. The film itself, due to the mitigating circumstances of the divorce, took over two years to complete, though the divorce wasn’t the only problem. After a third of the film had been shot a poor printing service destroyed it and the whole thing had to be re-shot. Several months later the entire set burned to the ground, leaving Chaplin again struggling with this troubled production. In fact, there were so many problems with this shoot and the divorce that in Chaplin’s autobiography, he never mentions the entire period, let alone the film.

However, 40 years later, Chaplin felt the world was again ready to see this film and he re-released it under the title The Circus (…just seeing if you’re awake there). Originally being a silent movie, the film was now being played amongst talking pictures so Chaplin re-scored the film and sung a song that played over the original opening. Here this disc gives us the re-released version which has again been tirelessly cleaned and digitally restored to its former glory, although I’m betting it’s safe to say this now looks better than the original ever did.

Originally released in 1928, Chaplin was flying in the face of adversity yet again as the rumours of talking pictures were thick and fast around Hollywood, threatening Chaplin’s much beloved silent format. However, as we have learned from other releases, this never affected the popularity of Chaplin’s Little Tramp and putting the talkies to shame with massive box office receipts, he proceeded to keep his films silent. This is entirely justified too, because these films remain as funny today as they (probably) were then. In fact, with the re-release of this film in 1968, Chaplin was so confident of the film’s potential he removed an entire sequence that was among the film’s original highlights, yet one that Chaplin was never satisfied with (more about this later in the extras section).

The Circus holds some truly wonderful moments of classic cinema, but the whole film was based on one single idea of Chaplin’s; that of a man performing on the highwire while monkeys attacked him. In essence the whole film is written around this central point near the climax of the film, but ironically it is just as capable of surviving without it. While it’s a funny moment, there are some just as funny (if not funnier) moments throughout the rest. The original chase sequence in which the Tramp enters the circus is absolutely hilarious, as is the crazy donkey that chases only him for no reason. However, my highlights lay in the actions of Chaplin when escaping from a lion at maximum speed and when he believes the girl of his dreams has fallen in love with him. Chaplin again brings everything he’s got to a film and it pays off in spades when the final fruits are brought to bear. While this film took two troubled years to produce, none of this is evident in it. It’s funny, it’s tender and it’s unique and Chaplin even updates plenty of the old clown stand-by gags with some very amusing results.

Another fine feather in Chaplin’s swollen banks of brilliance, this film also garnered an Academy Award at the very first Academy Awards (they weren’t called ‘Oscars’®™ yet… ). To quote, Chaplin won a Special Services Award ‘for versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and producing The Circus’. And well deserved it was too.

As noted, and as apparent in the rest of The Chaplin Collection, this has been lovingly cleaned, de-noised and de-toxed and looks better than ever. It's black and white of course, but this doesn’t detract from the feature. Lines are mildly soft, although not to any major degree, but the film was made between 1926 and 1928, so we should hope to look so good at the age this is. Contrasts have been well considered and are well balanced, although there is some light wavering in the darker areas of the screen, which is strictly the abilities of the period’s cameras and printing process and therefore irreparable today. It doesn’t matter anyway and doesn’t affect the enjoyment of the film. In fact, it makes it kind of charmingly innocent. Finally, like all the other films of the day, it’s in the 4:3 format.

Again for some reason they think stretching the original mono track into Dolby Digital 5.1 surround will work, but it doesn’t. Kudos for effort, but come on you guys, it’s a silent movie! All we have is the music. However, as noted, this is the re-released version (or ‘Director’s Cut’ if you will) and features our man Charlie singing the song during the opening titles. Not a bad voice either, considering he must have been in his sixties at least at the time. Chaplin has re-scored the print as well and this is a wonderfully diverse score with many ranges for the various moods meted out during the film. What a talented man he was and what a great loss to filmmaking when he crossed over.

Again a veritable plethora of Chaplin archival materials are granted us here and well worth checking out for their historical value alone.

First up we have the usual introduction running for 5:09 that helps put the film into its context. As usual though, it appears on Disc Two when it would have been much more helpful playing before the main event on Disc One.

Chaplin Today is an ongoing and brilliant documentary series made recently that discusses indepth each film of Chaplin’s and appears on each relative Chaplin Collection DVD. This one runs for 26:30, but is one of the least entertaining of the series. While it’s still very good, this one just doesn’t flow as well as the others have and is just that little bit less impressive. Oh well, we all have our off days.

The deleted sequence Chaplin cut for the re-release is included here in its entirety, fully restored and running for a whopping 9:47. The film would have worked just as well with it in, I feel, but who am I? Hardly a Chaplin myself. I watched it straight after the film, so the length didn’t bother me at all. However…

October 7-13, 1926 sees us with 26:28 of raw film footage from the specified dates as they try desperately to get the above deleted sequence right. Ironic, really. No sound here to help buoy up interest, but the interplay and subtle changes are interesting to take note of.

Mountbatten Home Movies are just that - three archival bits from Lord Louis Mountbatten’s home cinema collection. These are short and in desperate disrepair, but are kinda interesting. At Charlie Chaplin’s Studio sees Charlie mugging with monkeys, Douglas Fairbanks sees Charlie mugging with movie stars and The Sacrifice is a short film that sees Charlie comically mugging with mermaids. It’s very interesting to see what was perhaps a comical expression back then meaning something entirely different today (you’ll just have to see it yourself to find out what I mean). These run for a combined total of 6:27.

Documents are the usual collection of oddities and loose threads from the archives and feature Premiere Footage of the original premiere in Hollywood at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. A lot of promo stuff around going with the circus theme including freaks and carnies galore!

There’s also Camera A Camera B, a short multiple angle thing from back then, but the cameras were side by side! Oh well, Chaplin was the father of so many things…

3D Test Footage is wholly uninteresting as Chaplin’s chief cameraman tries to make an early attempt at 3D.

Circus Days is excerpts from a short film starring our beloved Kid himself, Jackie Coogan. This is 12:28 featuring a few similarities to The Circus itself.

Trailers are next and these are for the re-released version in 1968. One English, one French and very interesting at 5:20.

A largish photo gallery running for a total of 12:08 like several short films follows and this features set sketches at one point which look a lot like storyboard illustrations… again Chaplin may be a father to those as well. Also some classic photos from after the fire on the set, with the fourth image here being one of the greatest still shots of Chaplin I’ve yet seen in this sort of thing (it’s number four and it’s just great).

Finally, 12 original film posters from both releases which are amazing, plus the usual trailer montage of other films in The Chaplin Collection. Yet another mixed and eclectic bag of treasures.

Among Chaplin’s most underrated, yet funnier silent films, The Circus is easily as entertaining as some of his other silent works. There are some classic moments here in which we can see modern film comedy being born with Chaplin’s uncanny ability to cleverly edit and construct scene work. Another genius film in an astounding collection with another boatload of extras for those diehard fans to get their teeth into.

If you’re collecting the Chaplin DVDs, this one will sit amongst the others with pride and is equally as good as any of them so far released. What’s more, history is being salvaged so people still to come will be able to enjoy them just as we get to do today. Brilliant work.