Le Cirque de la Peur

This is a pretty good little film, though it is a lot like two films in one. The first portion is a heist film. However, after the money is hidden among the props at a circus, the film abruptly becomes a 'psycho at the circus' film. This was a very odd way of constructing the film--not bad, mind you, just very different.

Once in the circus portion of the film, one by one people are killed or nearly killed and the film becomes like a mystery. Who is the person behind all this? Who will they kill next? I would say that the true perpetrator was a pretty good choice, as it took me by surprise--making the film a better than average film.

By the way, although the film gives top billing to Christopher Lee, you barely see him in the film. Much of the time he's wearing a hood and I even wondered if it was always him under this disguise or if they just had an extra (a very TALL extra) filling in for some scenes. Who knows? However, even it was always him, it's more Leo Genn's film. Regardless, it's worth a look.

Circus of Fear is based on a novel by Edgar Wallace; the same writer who spawned the German "Krimi" style of film-making. This film is a British take on the Krimi style and comes out something like a Hammer Horror mystery, though the film is not without its problems. That's possibly why this film is not easy to come by; as despite the fact that it stars Christopher Lee in an interesting role as a circus lion tamer, Circus of Fear, at times, isn't all that easy to get along with as the plot is really quite messy and the horror that goes along with the central mystery often gets in the way. The plot begins with a botched heist that ends with one of the criminals shooting a police officer. The shooter is given the chance to go and give the boss his share before being allowed to flee the country; but unfortunately, he is murdered upon his arrival at the meeting place. The action then switches to the local circus where is believed that the identity of the murderer will be revealed. There we are introduced to a whole host of shady and mysterious characters...

The film is directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, who previously directed Christopher Lee in the excellent, fog-soaked, City of the Dead. Said previous film is a better one as the plot worked better; but while Circus of Fear doesn't always work well, the things that do work are very good and the film never gets boring. The cast is headed by Christopher Lee who is grim and imposing in his role as a horribly scarred and masked lion tamer. The film also features a small role for the great Klaus Kinski, as well as sound performances from British performers Anthony Newlands, Leo Genn and Margeret Lee. The film presents a lot of suspects and it soon becomes easier to just watch it rather than try and guess who the killer is. However, the two twists in the tale can be guessed (the first one is very obvious) without putting too much strain on the viewer, which is a shame. City of the Dead was all about atmosphere and this film is fairly atmospheric too, though not nearly to the same extent as the earlier film, which is another shame. Overall, Circus of Fear is not a great film; but it's entertaining enough and I can recommend it.

Christopher Lee in "Circus Of Fear". It's got to be a horror movie, right ? Well, no. "Circus Of Fear" is a pretty classic-style whodunnit full of red herrings and characters with skeletons in their cupboards.

It starts with a very dramatic and almost silent armoured car heist which goes terribly wrong when a security guard is shot and killed. The gang escape and divide up the loot, saving one share for their boss who only communicates with them via the phone and who none of them have ever seen. The action soon moves to the winter quarters of Barberini's circus - which appears to be somewhere in Berkshire! There is a quite surreal shot of a line of elephants and camels moving down a suburban street. The rest of the film takes place here, its anglo-German cast perfectly capturing the international flavour of the circus. And it is here that the murder mystery element of the film really takes off. Leo Genn is 'Gentleman Jim' Elliott, the police inspector investigating the heist. Though it seems most of the circus folk are keeping an eye on each other. Christopher Lee makes a startling appearance as Gregor, the lion tamer, who wears a black hood at all times to hide the horrible scars he received when he was attacked by a lion. The film was written and produced by Harry Alan Towers, for whom Lee made the series of Fu Manchu pictures, and directed by John Moxey, for whom he had made the 1959 occult chiller "City Of The Dead". There are pleasures to be had from cameo appearances by the likes of Cecil Parker as Elliott's superior and Klaus Kinski who gets to lurk menacingly as a member of the gang. It's not long before more bodies start piling up. But who is the killer ? Is it Barberini, the circus owner with financial troubles ? Mario, the jealous knife-thrower ? Maybe it's Mr. Big, the blackmailer ? Or Karl, the ringmaster with an unhealthy interest in Gina, Mario's girlfriend ? Or maybe it's Gregor, whose brother is in jail for murder ? I've seen the film. I know the truth. The killer is..Aaaarghh!

This film is living proof of the wonders a stunning-looking print on DVD can do to a film: when I first saw it (in a dubbed version on late-night Italian TV), I had felt it was nothing more than average and dismissed it somewhat. Truth be told, a few weeks prior to this I had watched the other Christopher Lee/John Moxey film - THE CITY OF THE DEAD (1960) - by way of VCI's exemplary DVD edition, and perhaps I compared it unfavorably to this minor horror classic.

I had long known Blue Underground were preparing a SE and I was not sure it was worthwhile for me to invest in it, but now I'm certainly glad I did because I enjoyed the film immensely (even though I had my heart in my throat all the time, expecting the picture to freeze and break up any minute - which, thankfully, did not occur!). It's still nothing great, I guess (Lee certainly made many better films where his talents were more immediately in evidence; the hood and the fairly ridiculous accent hamper his performance here somewhat) but it's easily the best film from BU's "The Christopher Lee Collection" Set - and in fact it and the restored edition of THE BLOODY JUDGE (1970), not forgetting the plentiful and wonderful supplements, save this relatively expensive purchase from being a wasted opportunity (considering the low profile of all four titles in the Lee canon)!

The plot is pretty convoluted (I can certainly believe Jess Franco here when he said that Harry Alan Towers is a very good writer, not evidenced by the two Fu Manchu films): while the identity of the killer could have easily been established if one had thought about it for a while (considering it follows the Agatha Christie maxim that the least suspicious-looking character is indeed the guilty party) but, frankly, the film provides red herrings and new twists at every turn that when the final revelation is made, it still comes as fairly surprising (it's perhaps harder to swallow that the buffoonish if clearly ambitious Eddie could be the delicious Margaret Lee's secret lover!). The film also features an arresting opening robbery sequence and is beautifully shot for such a low-budget film. The music score is very atmospheric and the circus scenes consist mainly of stock footage but the lion-taming and knife-throwing acts inject a measure of excitement at appropriate moments.

Casting is certainly above-average for this type of film; there are some pretty good performances here: Leo Genn's above all as the amiable yet dogged Police Inspector; Margaret Lee is more than a radiant beauty - despite her sluttish character, she was fairly sympathetic (especially after having been threatened by a lion) and I think that the film loses something with her sudden, tragic exit; I liked Skip Martin a lot, amusingly named "Mr. Big" - he is a pretty interesting character to begin with (sort of a cynical Chorus to the proceedings), and even more so for being involved in some shady business on the side, for which he gets his just desserts in the end!; Klaus Kinski is eminently watchable despite his limited role (at least he does manage an effective death scene); Cecil Parker added some nice but not overstated British humor; Heinz Drache made for a pretty engaging hero; Suzy Kendall, on the other hand, was more decorative than anything else - though, in all fairness, she could only do so much with her thinly-written role. As I've already mentioned, it's disappointing that Christopher Lee was not involved at all with this release; an interview would have been nice.

The gloved killer of this film brings up comparisons with the giallos being made contemporaneously in Italy, though it's nowhere near as violent (in fact, this one is pretty tame in the scares/gore department). I did notice some flaws in the story: Christopher Lee taking off his hood when his mortal enemy (Drache) is beside him is a miscalculation, in my opinion; ditto, we never learn how Drache finds Lee and Kendall's hiding-place in the cave so easily when we had just been told the Police had scoured the area thoroughly, bearing no results! Also, Lee's death comes as a surprise: he is not the villain and if it was done because it was deemed 'obligatory', it was certainly a silly move!

I only saw the film for the first time a couple of years back but, for the life of me, I have no idea what constitutes the 'new' 8-minute sequence which was supposedly unearthed for this release? Can anyone shed some light on the matter? The Audio Commentary is somewhat dry, though Moxey's enthusiasm for his films (if not his memory of them) is constantly felt throughout the discussion; again, disappointingly, the cuts this film was subjected to are hardly mentioned and certainly not listed in any way - though, in all fairness, Moxey probably wouldn't have watched any of the export versions (not recently anyway)!

As almost everybody has already noted, "Circus of Fear" is not a horror movie, despite the title, the advertising and the presence of Christopher Lee (in a secondary role). It's a cross between a crime caper and a whodunit. And as soon as you get over your initial reservations, it turns out to be an engrossing film that keeps you guessing all the way to the end. The story is full of strange, shady, secretive and suspicious characters, but the revelation of the killer's identity still comes as a shock (to me at least - it blew my theory away!). Apart from the sometimes overemphatic music score, this 40-year-old movie still holds up today. And who wants to miss any opportunity of seeing Klaus Kinski playing....Klaus Kinski? This guy only needed a cigar, a few close-ups and two or three lines of dialogue to look creepy! (**1/2)