NOTE: We occassionally run Guest Voice posts from thoughtful readers (and those who comment under our posts). This is a two-part review of Charlie Chaplin’s classic film “The Circus,” written by Dan Schneider who sometimes leaves comments on this site. He has this site and this new film site.
DVD Review Of The Circus
Copyright © by Dan Schneider
One can argue that Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed, and starred in greater films than his neglected 1928 gem, The Circus, his last fully silent film, which he also wrote with Joseph Plunkett, but one cannot reasonably argue that he made a funnier film; nor can one argue that The Circus is not a great film itself. Yet, critics, fans of Chaplin, and even Chaplin himself, long overlooked this great film.
The reason has more to do with the highly publicized divorce trial from Lita Grey that Chaplin endured while filming the feature over two years, as well as a host of other production disasters. Chaplin was so paranoid he felt his wife would try to steal the film, so hid the negatives. The film was not even mentioned in Chaplin’s autobiography, nor was it screened in the years after its release, until, in 1970, Chaplin rereleased it with a new score that he composed.
As a Chaplin aficionado, I can state that no Chaplin film goes as long- 69 minutes, with such sustained laughter. There are more memorable gags in this one film than in any other film he made- pr perhaps anyone has made since, and it deservedly won him his first Academy Award at the first ceremony in 1929. It was a special award for Versatility And Genius In Writing, Acting, Directing, And Producing. Obviously, these were the days before schlock like Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Monster, and Titanic were considered ‘great films,’ worthy of such awards. Yet, even had Chaplin not buried the film in his vault for decades, the very fact that it was made between two of his greatest critical and financial successes, The Gold Rush and City Lights, two indisputable silent film era masterpieces, may have fated the film to its nearly forgotten status anyway.
Fortunately, perception and reality, while often one in politics, are not so in reality.
What separates The Circus from other Chaplin classics in a positive vein is that his Tramp character hearkens back more to the rowdy and mischievous figure of the great Mutual and Essanay short films of the 1910s, not the 1920s sentimentalized Tramp. And unlike the later Modern Times, The Great Dictator, Monsieur Verdoux, and Limelight, there is no political pandering nor artistic self-absorption- even when depicting the terrible pre-Great Depression poverty and hunger that abounds at the circus. And in contrast with his three other great works from that era- The Kid, The Gold Rush, and City Lights, The Circus is not in the least bit schmaltzy.
Yes, Chaplin did schmaltz better than any other film star, and raised it to an art, for who can forget his scenes of separation from Jackie Coogan in The Kid, his dance of the rolls in The Gold Rush, or the empyreal ending of City Lights? But, let’s face it, he came damned near to cheesiness in those scenes, a point that his greatest detractors point to when denigrating Chaplin, especially against his two greatest comic rivals and contemporaries- Harold Lloyd and, especially, Buster Keaton.
In The Circus, however, this is all gone, despite another love story that works out poorly for The Tramp. There are no heartstrings tugged in this film, as in The Kid, perhaps because, instead of starring opposite a child, Chaplin plays some of his greatest scenes against animals- those other notorious scene stealers.
For example, watch the hilarious scenes where a braying ass chases Chaplin, or where the circus magician’s table unleashes all sorts of animals from his two hats, or when Chaplin dashes into a sleeping lion’s cage to avoid the ass, and accidentally locks himself in. His first attempt at egress finds that the next door cage houses a tiger- who is awake. Then a yipping dog barks at Chaplin, who prays for its silence. Remarkably, the scene was filmed with a real lion, not an obvious fake animal. How Chaplin got away with it under his insurance company’s eyes is a mystery. Then, of course, in the climactic tightrope walking scene, when the rogue monkeys harass and depants Chaplin, whose safety wire and brace have come off.
Now, recall the dance of the rolls in The Gold Rush, and compare it with the scene where Chaplin is angered when the circus owner’s (Allan Garcia’s) daughter, Merna the bareback horse rider (Merna Kennedy), whom he’ll fall in love with, takes his unattended sandwich. The schmaltzy Chaplin would have cued the ‘feminine Chaplin’ who always flirts to come out. But, in this scene, Chaplin takes back his food, as anyone would, is angered, and only slowly falls to the girl’s charms. By its end he even gives her the egg he boiled.
And, as great as the ending in City Lights is, especially in its ending the film where other films would add a coda, the ending of The Circus is perhaps just a notch below, if that.
The Tramp has gotten over his envy of his rival for the girl’s affections, Rex the tightrope walker (Harry Crocker), sets them up for marriage, and pretends to want to tag along with the circus as it packs up to move. Instead, he stays behind, and all that is left is the circus ring of burnt and dug up soil. The Tramp walks off into the horizon as blackness irises in on him. Real emotion can be felt for the perennial loser who rose above his baser instincts, for even in the last shot, right before The Tramp accepts his desolate fate, there is a look of absolute fury on his face, something that was only present in the earlier shorts, and never appeared again in later Chaplin films. Yet, he gets over it, crumples up the remainder of circus poster with Merna’s emblem, and merely kicks it away with his foot before exiting stage background.
The final part of this review will run tomorrow.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.