Cyrk

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. (06.02.2010)

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. (22.01.2015)

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. (15.10.2021)

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. (28.09.2011)

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% (10.12.2015)