Le Cirque de la Peur

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.

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)

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.

I'm stunned by the low average (5.4) given to Circus of Fear by IMDb voters. I've just watched the 91-minute colour version put out on DVD by Blue Underground, and found it absorbing throughout.

My guess is that many of the reviewers have seen only the truncated 1965 American version (65 minutes); naturally, missing 26 minutes of a 91- minute film, one will see only a very imperfect version of what the filmmakers intended. To get a true sense of the film one has to have the uncut version.

Despite the advertisements of the time, which played up the film as a horror movie (cashing in on the fact that horror icon Christopher Lee was the star of the film), this is not a horror film. There are some frightening moments, but this is essentially a whodunit, and a fairly good one. The slight "horror" tinge to the film (with its hooded lion- tamer, murders by skillfully thrown knives, screaming circus starlets, vicious circus lions, etc.) add atmosphere, but the story remains a whodunit.

It's also a caper film, insofar as it opens with a well-filmed money truck heist in broad daylight on the Tower Bridge in London. (It was filmed on location for that part.) But there ends up being some kind of sinister and unclear connection between the heist and goings-on at a circus, and it takes the whole film to make clear exactly what the connection is.

Leo Genn is brilliant as the Scotland Yard detective. He has a smooth, beautiful, calm acting manner reminiscent of Herbert Marshall's, and is a joy to watch. The excellent dialogue he is given doesn't hurt. The movie also has good performances by a number of very good British and German actors of the 1960s (it was a German-English co-production).

Christopher Lee is good in the part of the hooded lion-tamer with an ambiguous past. He shows his ability to act in non-horror parts here.

The opening and closing theme music is good, with a 1960s British flavor, but the film itself has only incidental music, with many parts of the story unaccompanied. This works well for this type of film.

The colour photography is beautiful.

This movie is definitely worth more than a 7 out of 10. Maybe it's not quite worth an 8, but to compensate for the ridiculous 5.4 average, I give it an 8 anyway. That's less misleading than a 5.4. A 5.4 says, "Don't waste your time watching this movie", but this movie is very much worth watching, for Genn's performance alone, not to mention its other merits.