Le Cirque de la Peur

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)!

This movie would lead you to believe that Christopher Lee is the main star, but he is not in it all that much. He is in this one more than he was in "Scream and Scream Again", but for most of his scenes he is wearing a hood. This movie was sort of good, sort of bad. The opening of the movie was messed up on the copy I got as scenes skipped here and there and the sound was messed up too, but as the movie went along it got better. This movie first shows a complicated armored truck robbery in to much detail. It then shifted to the circus where the police tracked some of the money. In the circus we meet all sorts of strange characters; any number of them could be responsible for the robbery and a murder that took place on circus grounds. Of course, the movie leads you to believe this or that person committed the crime and each time they usually clear the person of the crime. Could have been better, but it could have been worse it was somewhat interesting. Has to be one of the only movies ever to end with a little person being fired.

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.

Enjoyed this film which starts off with a very neat robbery on the London Bridge, in England and then the picture takes you to a Circus Community that has lots of wild animals and very creepy people. Christopher Lee appears in the film but very briefly, their are plenty of lions, tigers, elephants and plenty of people with hidden paths and deep dark secrets. There is a constant battle between a guy and his attractive gal who teases him with a lot of flirting with other men. This film will completely keep you guessing just how the film will end because of the many twists and turns it takes you on. This film would really be a good Halloween film even though it does not have any horror, just suspense. Enjoy.

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)