Círculo de terror

In BERSERK, circus owner, Monica Rivers (Joan Crawford) finds a novel way to drum up business when a series of "accidents" prove to be profitable. The action starts right away when the high-wire act turns deadly. While Monica enjoys her windfall, and Scotland Yard snoops about, more performers come to their abrupt, grisly end.

Though thrillers set in circuses have been made before, none have had Ms. Crawford! She smokes! She glares! She romances the musclebound daredevil! Doesn't this guy own a shirt?

While some of the deaths are memorable, like the spiked noggin sequence, the actual circus acts aren't bad either. Especially, those adorable poodles, and the elephant stepping over the prone women! Yikes! One wrong move and your head is oatmeal!

Co-stars Michael Gough (KONGA, HORROR HOSPITAL) and the heavenly Diana Dors...

The makings for a good thriller are here: a series of bizarre murders plagues a traveling circus as it journeys across England. Unfortunately, the film's pacing is slow and unimaginative. Scenes tend to run long and they've not been shaped to create any real suspense or urgency. Occasionally the film simply stops for footage of circus acts which, though mildly interesting, do little to advance the plot. Even the revelation of the killer's identity proves disappointing since this revelation doesn't seem to grow out of past events but has simply been "tacked on."

Despite these faults, there's a curiously likable quality to "Berserk," and Joan Crawford's damn-the-torpedoes performance as the circus owner lends it a certain "campy" charm. Especially amusing are her romantic scenes with Ty Hardin who was about 26 years her junior at the time of the filming.

Ty may have been a bit past his "beefcake" prime which he reached in his "Chapman Report" appearance some five years earlier, but he still looks good here with his shirt off, even though there's a curious reluctance to show his navel.

Rounding out the cast are Michael Gough, Diana Dors, and Judy Geeson. Robert Hardy plays the policeman sent to investigate the murders but his part proves to be superfluous.

Berserk!, despite many things including its overkill title, is not as bad as some people claim, though not a great success either, not as good as Max Ophuel's Lola Montes. The actors get through their lines professionally. Set in a circus, the movie does a tolerably good job of showing performers of the class of "freaks" as responsible participants, notably George Claydon. Its best scene is when the character played by the ueberblonde Diana Dors barges in, bottle in hand, on shirtless Ty Hardin, and he resists her close up. For his own reasons, he's set instead on Joan Crawford. Joan was not a spring chicken by the time the movie was made, if she ever was one: she looks good in her ringmaster's costume, running the circus she owns, but someone should have helped her better with the red cloak she throws over her dowdy nightgown and told her never to let down her red-tinted hair. The real problem is that the movie never lets sparks fly between her and Ty Hardin. It's not a question of age difference, because look at Anna Magnani's triumphs over Burt Lancaster and Marlon Brando. OK, Joan Crawford in this movie has the additional handicap of playing a character hard as nails. But a better script would have made the discrepancy of her motives tragic. The last 10 minutes close things down in a pretty improbable way (the last murder is not done by the same person as the others). It would have helped to have ten more minutes for the Crawford character to be bereft and not berserk. Meanwhile, for those into it, there are lots of circus acts that emphasize their risks.

Berserk is not as dreadful as I had anticipated. It's a straightforward and reasonably entertaining whodunit set in a traveling circus in Britain. Overall I wouldn't call the pacing slow, as others have, but it is odd. At the beginning the story moves along briskly, as the plot quickly thickens. Then periodically it breaks for extended circus acts that have no bearing on the story, though it could be argued that since we are half expecting a new murder to occur at any moment, we have no choice but to be attentive. Certainly this wouldn't be much of a film without the centerpiece, Joan Crawford, who delivers a forceful performance as the hardboiled boss of the circus. Over sixty, her hair is dyed pinkish blonde and worn tightly pulled back to emphasize her still attractive facial features (and possibly to lift the face) and in half her scenes she is wearing a mistress-of-ceremonies outfit with bare legs. She could still pull it off. But one notices several instances of "Joan Crawford lighting" that started in the 50s if not earlier: in these instances the upper part of her face is high lit but there is a convenient shadow under the chin to de-emphasize the sagging jawline. (These days the average actress of 60-plus has had surgical facelifts.) The tone of her acting here is very much like the performance she gave around the same period on the CBS soap opera The Secret Storm in which she subbed for her ailing daughter who was a regular cast member of the show: full throttle whether necessary or not – but you got your money's worth or at least felt you were being generously served by the performer.

Ty Hardin as a high wire performer who sort of has the hots for Joan (we really can't tell because the script coyly dances around the issue) was on a career downturn at the time this was made and doesn't make much of an impression here. Diana Dors as an abrasive member of Crawford's troupe of performers enlivens every scene she's in. Just when you think she is stealing the film, in steps Crawford to show everyone who's the Star.

The production values are cheap but so well presented that they almost look expensive. Shooting actual circus acts lends an air of plausibility to the film as a whole that the script itself lacks, and one can understand the logic of approaching the production from this angle. If you cut out all of the genuinely interesting circus material this would be very thin gruel indeed. The scoring is also peculiar. Usually it's par-for-the-course sinister/suspenseful. But sometimes it veers off into a lush studio orchestra sound of the kind you'd expect to hear as underscoring to a scene of a limo gliding to a stop in front of a Beverly Hills mansion wherein Lana Turner is longing for love. This disconcerting shift occurs right after the dandy opening scene and credits.

Crawford seems in her element here as a tough lady with responsibilities and she is the main reason to see the film.

It's very sad to see Joan Crawford reduced to appearing in this cheaply made and poorly written opus but she behaves like a STAR all the way through. Who else would have looked so good in a leotard at 62 years old? The film is set in a travelling circus (in reality the UK's Billy Smarts Circus, one of the best and biggest of its day)and much of the running time is taken up with showing the acts. As most UK circus acts are now animal free it's an interesting history lesson to see how these acts were actually presented. It's quite a breathtaking sight to watch a huge elephant step over half a dozen women prostrate on the floor and rather sad to see the lion tamer putting half a dozen snarling, growling beasts through their paces. Just look at Joans expression as she helps lead out the performing poodles though, she's loving every minute of it! We know that she had pet poodles of her own and she is really in her element here. The plot (what there is of it) doesn't bear too much scrutiny and the revelation of the killer and the motive are quite ridiculous. Also on the minus side of things are some poor performances - George Claydon in particular and a cringe-making musical comedy number which appears out of nowhere. There is also a hugely embarrassing scene with Crawford looking like an ancient ghost, wearing shoulder length hair and a neck high negligee, being romanced in her trailer by hunky Ty Hardin - she was 62 and he 37! On the plus side there are some great character actors appearing including the fabulous Diana Dors, Michael Gough, Ambrosine Phillpotts and Robert Hardy but only Diana Dors gives Crawford a run for her money. Overall this is still a fun film for Crawford fans but if you're going to watch it don't watch the trailer first as it shows every killing and even the death of the (supposed) murderer!