I reviewed quite a few Charlie Chaplin movies last year when I was working through a lot of the classics of the silent era, but somehow I missed out on The Circus. This came out in between The Gold Rush and City Lights. I’ve pretty much liked every Chaplin movie I’ve seen except for The Great Dictator, and The Circus ends up more or less being in the middle for me. It’s not quite on the level of The Kid or City Lights for me, but I do like it more than The Gold Rush, Modern Times, and The Great Dictator.

The movie involves Chaplin’s Tramp character finding himself in a circus. It ends up just being a lot of fun circus-based gags, but the overall plot is that The Tramp ends up being the hit of the circus, which is great except that his comedy is unintentional, usually involving him being chased around by wild animals or things like that. He also takes a liking to the ringmaster’s daughter, who is constantly abused by her father.

It’s actually a miracle that this movie ended up being as good as it is, because from what I’ve read, production for it was absolute hell. After a month of filming, the film negatives got scratched up. A lot of footage had to be reshot, and Chaplin wasn’t as pleased with the reshoots as he was with the originals. Chaplin’s studio also burned down during production, stalling filming for a while. Chaplin also ended up facing a lot of personal struggles during production, such as the death of his mother, a divorce with his wife Lita Grey, and claims from the IRS that he owed a million dollars in back taxes. This led to Chaplin having a nervous breakdown during production of the film. Given all of these hardships, I think it would have been understandable if the movie didn’t turn out well. But despite all of this, the movie is actually really good.

The movie doesn’t have the same social commentary as The Gold Rush or Modern Times, or the same emotional depth as The Kid or City Lights, but I really like it for what it is. It probably has some of my favorite visual gags of any of Chaplin’s movies. Perhaps the most memorable involves Chaplin having to do a tightrope performance. He decides to cheat and have someone controlling a harness for him to prevent him from falling, which is already funny enough to see some of the goofy ways his body moves in the harness. But then the harness breaks off halfway through, which makes it even funnier.

So, like I said, I don’t think The Circus is one of Chaplin’s most “important” films, which is probably why it didn’t end up on my radar for a little while, but I do actually think it’s just as good, if not better, than a lot of his other films. It’s now the sixth Chaplin movie I’ve seen, and I had a lot of fun with it. If you’re ever deciding to watch some Chaplin movies, or some classics from the silent era in general, try not to overlook The Circus. It’s definitely worth it.

4/5