With a much bigger cultural footprint than today, CIRCUS themed movies were mainstays in Hollywood from silents to the ‘60s. But extra caché and something of an explosion in A-list interest came after the international success of E.A. Dupont’s VARIETÉ in 1925. From HE WHO GETS SLAPPED/’24 and SALLY OF THE SAWDUST/’25, just before, to THE DEVIL’S CIRCUS, THE UNKNOWN/’27, THE SHOW/’27, FOUR DEVILS/’28, THE CIRCUS/’28, many others, exceptional films from Victor Sjöström, D.W. Griffith, Benjamin Christensen, Tod Browning², F.W. Murnau*, Charles Chaplin. And this little gem, long thought lost, but beautifully resurrected on KINO. Director William Wellman is in good early form a year before he made his rep with WINGS. Like VARIETÉ, and many of these circus films, there’s a romantic triangle, here between millionaire ne’er-do-well Lowell Sherman and Houdini-like illusionist Clive Brook. Both pining for lovely Florence Vidor, stage assistant to Brook (whom she loves like a brother and Sherman who by chance keeps taking credit for saving her from danger). Eventually, a death-defying stunt goes wrong and sorts out loyalties. The story is piffle, but the atmosphere (Oo-la-la!) really holds your attention with the ‘Moscow’ Circus troupe stunningly caught in constant foreground or background action by cinematographer Victor Milner, and the wonderful art direction of Paramount’s Hans Dreier, brought over from Germany (by Ernst Lubitsch for FORBIDDEN PARADISE/’24?), then staying for the rest of his career. What luck the one surviving print was in near pristine shape!
DOUBLE-BILL: *Murnau’s FOUR DEVILS . . . and good luck finding this lost film. Leave it to Hollywood to lose Murnau’s follow up to SUNRISE! Any of the others mentioned above will do nicely, especially Browning’s unbelievably sick THE UNKNOWN with Lon Chaney as an armless wonder in love with a very young male-averse Joan Crawford.
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