The Circus

When I'm faced with challenges in my life, I am somewhat heartened by something I learned as a child, that an oyster has to be irritated by a grain of sand in order to eventually make a pearl. That knowledge always made the load I was carrying seem less significant, and helped me to see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. Cinematically speaking, at least in the fine age of silent movies, one of the most difficult gestation periods for the birth of a great film was the highly traumatic 11 months of production for one of Sir Charles Chaplin's masterpieces, 'The Circus'.

I love both silent cinema and early filmic comedies, and though I prefer Buster Keaton to Chaplin, I always enjoy his great works, up to and including 'The Gre...

This is definitely my favourite Charlie Chaplin outing for the Tramp as he alights at the circus and discovers that he has quite a penchant for entertaining the crowds. Of course, we only discover this after a few mishaps with the police who think hes a vagrant trained by Fagin lead him to the big top where his antics cause ructions of laughter. The boss of this enterprise knows hes onto a winner, but not to a performing seal. This Tramp doesnt rehearse or perform any standard routine, he can only improvise as events dictate! With some careful manipulation, this soon makes the shows a success and sees our newly successful entertainer become smitten with his bosss daughter (Merna Kennedy). Needless to say, the owner (Al Ernest Garcia) isnt s...