The Circus
Director: Charles Chaplin
Year Released: 1928
Rating: 3.0
Chaplin's Little Tramp character finds himself performing in a circus for money and usurping the entire show with his coordinated anarchy; along with cops, he also has a nasty circus manager to deal with (who freely smacks women around). Exuberant to a fault and often very funny, it can only properly be compared to his other films - as a whole, it ranks somewhere right below The Kid - and despite its clipped running time and a few lackluster bits, it's desperate to please. Most honorably, Chaplin won a special Academy Award for his "genius" in making this film, "genius" being an adjective that could just as well fit his entire career.
