The Circus (1928)

★ 7.9 1h 12m 878 votes IMDb

Charlie, a wandering tramp, becomes a circus handyman - soon the star of the show - and falls in love with the circus owner's stepdaughter.

The Circus

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Cast

Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin as A Tramp Died 1977 · Walworth, London, England, UK Charles “Charlie” Chaplin (April 16, 1889 – December 25, 1977) was an English comic actor, film director and composer best-known for his work during the silent film era. He used mime, slapstick and ot...
Al Ernest Garcia
Al Ernest Garcia as The Circus Proprietor and Ring Master Died 1938 · San Francisco, California, USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Al Ernest Garcia (11 March 1887 – 4 September 1938) was an American actor, best known for his long association with Charlie Chaplin. He acted with Chaplin in six...
Merna Kennedy
Merna Kennedy as The Proprietor's Step-Daughter Merna, a Circus Rider Died 1944 · Kankakee, Illinois, USA Merna Kennedy (born Maude Kahler) was an American screen actress of the late silent and early talkies era..
Harry Crocker
Harry Crocker as Rex, a Tight Rope Walker Died 1958 · San Francisco, California, USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Harry Crocker (July 2, 1893 - May 23, 1958) was an American film star of the 1920s and who starred in Charlie Chaplin's The Circus in 1928. He was a Los Angeles...
George Davis
George Davis as A Magician Died 1965 · Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands From Wikipedia George Davis (7 November 1889 – 19 April 1965) was a Dutch-born American actor. He appeared in more than 260 films between 1916 and 1963. He was born in Amsterdam and died in Los Angel...
Henry Bergman
Henry Bergman as An Old Clown Died 1946 · San Francisco, California, USA Henry Bergman (February 23, 1868 – October 22, 1946) was an American actor of stage and film, known for his long association with Charlie Chaplin. Born in San Francisco, California, he acted in live t...

Audience Reviews

talisencrw 10/10 Apr 13, 2016
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 Great Dictator'. Particularly close to my heart is 'The Circus'. Considering all of the brutal disasters Sir Charles Chaplin was facing during the movie's elongated production (ruined film negative, studio burning down, Lita Grey's divorce papers [and the related sex-scandals hitting the papers], nervous breakdown, mother dying, IRS demanding a million in back taxes, one of the circus wagons being stolen, just to mention a few), it's miraculous that a film was released at all, let alone one as gracefully hilarious yet contemplatively mature as 'The Circus', and that he was able to both recover and rebound from this bad spell to have a superlative career as one of the greatest actor/directors ever to grace cinema. His life was basically a three-ring circus, and he was still able to retain his dignity and escape virtually unscathed.

Because of the aforementioned trials and tribulations he endured in those eleven months of the film's making (which IMHO would be worthy of a fine film itself, in its documentation and chronicling), though it may not be as side-splitting in its hilarity as 'The Gold Rush' or 'Modern Times', it will probably hold the closest place to my heart of Chaplin's films.
CinemaSerf 7/10 Oct 10, 2025
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 he’s a vagrant trained by “Fagin” lead him to the big top where his antics cause ructions of laughter. The boss of this enterprise knows he’s onto a winner, but not to a performing seal. This “Tramp” doesn’t 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 boss’s daughter (Merna Kennedy). Needless to say, the owner (Al Ernest Garcia) isn’t so impressed, but then he has a habit of mistreating his daughter anyway so maybe the “Tramp” might be able to offer her some protection from his abuse. Just when things look to be rosey, the debonair tightrope walking “Rex” (Harry Cracker) arrives and begins to steal his thunder. How to compete? Well fight fire with fire, of course - metaphorically and fifty feet above the ground! Chaplin delivers effortlessly here with a comedic timing that is skilfully disguised as chaotic and slapstick but in reality is so perfectly choreographed as to look simple and natural. The love story adds a little extra substance to the characterisations as he and Kennedy clearly understand how to perform with each other, and it also serves as a reminder of just how crucial these travelling circuses were to a small town America where family entertainment was thin on the ground. It also illustrates just how frugal life was as these “acts” travelled from town to town living as subsistence an existence as many of their mangy and malnourished beasts that fascinated the audiences. A finer example of less being more you’ll probably never see, and on a big screen with a live pianist this is cinema at it’s finest, and funniest.

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