CHAPLIN C-CIRCUS (DVD/2 DISC) DVD

The Circus
The Circus is generally considered to be a lesser Charlie Chaplin effort, coming as it does between two unquestioned masterpieces, The Gold Rush (1925) and City Lights (1931). To be sure, the film is not one of Chaplin's best, but it has a lot going for it. Director Chaplin casts star Chaplin in his traditional "Little Tramp" role, who when first we see him is on the lam from the law. He takes refuge under the tent of a failing circus. Unintentionally, Charlie disrupts the show's big clown act, and the crowd roars. The ringmaster decides to hire Charlie as a clown, building the whole circus around him. Charlie has many an adventure and close shave while performing under the Big Top, the best of which involves a tightrope, a broken support wire, and a playful monkey. The standard Chaplin pathos rears its head when Charlie falls in love with pretty tightrope walker Merna Kennedy. When sweet Merna chooses handsome Harry Crocker, Charlie is left alone once more--but, with a characteristic shrug, he shuffles into the horizon and onto his next adventure. The Circus has several gaping logic holes which tend to pull the film down (we're supposed to believe, for example, that Charlie is unaware that he's a sensation as a clown, even after several weeks of performing before appreciative audiences), but the film contains several excellent setpieces, including a Hall of Mirrors sequence which anticipates Orson Welles' more serious Lady From Shanghai climax by twenty years. The Circus won Chaplin a special Oscar in 1928, then lay unseen for forty-two years; it was reissued in 1970, with a new musical score by Chaplin himself (who can be heard singing the theme song in the opening scenes). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cast Charles Chaplin as The Tramp Allan Garcia as Circus Owner Merna Kennedy as Equestrian Henry Bergman as The Old Clown Harry Crocker as Rex, the Tightrope Walker Stanley "Tiny" Sandford as The Head Property Man John Rand as Assistant Property Man George Davis as Magician Steve Murphy as The Pickpocket

Crew Harry Crocker - First Assistant Director Charles Chaplin - Director Charles Chaplin - Editor Charles Chaplin - Composer (Music Score) Charles Hall - Production Designer Roland H. "Rollie" Totheroh - Cinematographer Charles Chaplin - Cinematographer Charles Chaplin - Producer Charles Chaplin - Screenwriter

The Circus
Charlie Chaplin puts the Little Tramp into the circus, and the result is his most underappreciated feature. Like many of Chaplin's films, The Circus blends the hilarious with the sentimental, and at the core is Charlie's destiny to watch from the sidelines as his love falls for someone else. The very naïveté and sentimentality of Charlie's scenes with Merna Kennedy are what make them so strangely affecting and sincere. But it is the comedy that makes this film priceless. Among the best sequences are: Charlie's pursuit by the police, which takes him through the house of mirrors and includes the famous gag of Charlie turning himself into a sort of robotic figurine to elude the police; Charlie's failure to successfully audition for the circus, because it involves being intentionally funny; Charlie's disastrous introduction as a prop man; Charlie getting stuck in the lion's cage; and, of course, the flawless climax in which Charlie attempts to perform Rex's high wire act. Throughout, there are smaller, more subtle, moments that flesh out the characters and give the film its heart, and as always with Chaplin, there is the essential aspect of Charlie's personality: the Little Tramp who tries to maintain his dignity in the face of ridicule and defeat. Chaplin's pitch-perfect comic timing and his ability to convey the Tramp's personality through the subtlest of gestures and expressions are what make his creation so endurable. In fact, he is so smooth that he makes it easy to take for granted the amount of work involved in making the film seem so effortless, but the very fact that the shooting for the picture spanned an amazing two years underscores just how much sweat and experimentation went into Chaplin's work. The Circus will probably always exist in the shadow of Chaplin's better-known efforts, but it deserves to be fully appreciated on its own terms. ~ Bob Mastrangelo, All Movie Guide
 

Charles Chaplin: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie, Best Actor (nominated) Charles Chaplin: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie, Best Comedy Direction (nominated) Charles Chaplin: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie, Honorary and Other Awards (winner)

Telluride Film Festival, Film Presented (nominated)

General Specifications: Language Options: English Subtitle Options: English, French, Spanish, Por, TH, KO Sound Processing: DD5.1: Dolby Digital w/ sub-woofer channel DD1: Dolby Digital Mono Additional Features: cc All-new digital transfer from Chaplin family vault picture and audio elements Soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1 as well as original mono Interactive menus Scene access Subtitles: English, Français, Español, Português, Chinese, Thai, & Korean Introduction by David Robinson: Chaplin's biographer discusses the historical and cinematic context of the film (6 mins.) "Chaplin Today: The Circus" documentary by François Ede with the participation of the award-winning director Emir Kusturica (26 mins.) Deleted sequence: Chaplin, the bareback rider, and the tightrope walker go on an accident-filled dinner date (10 mins.) October 7-13, 1926: Outtakes from a week of shooting on The Circus (26 mins.) Mountbatten home movies: Three home movies from the archives of Lord Louis Mountbatten -- Chaplin on the set of The Circus; Chaplin visits Douglas Fairbanks on the set of The Gaucho; The Sacrifice, an improvised comedy shot on a beach, with Chaplin as king of a South Sea island (7 mins.) The Hollywood premiere (1928): Reportage of the star-studded premiere of The Circus in Los Angeles (6 mins.) Camera A, Camera B: Shots made simultaneously from the two cameras consistently used in shooting The Circus (1 min.) 3-D test footage by Roland Totheroh: 3-D experiment by Chaplin's chief cameraman (2 mins.) Circus Day With Jackie Coogan - Excerpts: The young co-star of The Kid plays the lead in this adaptation of a favorite children's book about the adventures of little Toby Tyler in a traveling circus (12 mins.) Photo gallery: Production photos, deleted scene, designers' sketches, sets, Merna Kennedy Film posters Trailers (8 mins.) The Chaplin Collection (12 mins.) DVD Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1: Pre-1954 Standard MPAA Rating: G DVD Discs Included: 2 DVD Sides: 2 DVD DVD Region Code: 1 Content Length: 69 min Part of Series: The Chaplin Collection   DVD Chapters: Side #1 -- The Film 1. Directed by Charlie Chaplin [1:33] 2. The Empty Circus [2:01] 3. The Wallet [2:57] 4. Mirror Maze [3:25] 5. The Funny Man [3:40] 6. A Job [5:21] 7. William Tell [3:12] 8. The Barber-Shop Act [4:12] 9. The Circus Rider [2:21] 10. Prof. Bosco [3:49] 11. The Same Hard Life [2:21] 12. The Lion [3:45] 13. The Pole [3:02] 14. Fortune-Telling [4:34] 15. I Don't Like Tightrope Walkers [3:34] 16. His New Ambition [1:16] 17. A New King of the Air [5:23] 18. On the Rope [5:44] 19. That Night [2:36] 20. The Next Morning [3:38]