While this isn't the best film that starred Andy Clyde and Billy Bevan, it still is worth seeing just for its silly and mindless fun. Sure, it isn't particularly deep and the laughs are really cheap ones (the type kids in particular love), but who cares if it's enjoyable? The duo work at a circus. And, of course, they mess up a lot of things and have some silly adventures. One cute scene I particularly liked was the bicycle sequence where Billy's suspenders were secured to the top of the ramp as he sped away--only to be yanked backwards at the last moment. But, the sequence that takes up the most time on the film is when they accidentally let the lions escape. At the very end, they are, believe it or not, stuck in a small house suspended hundreds of feet off the ground with a lion! This film should never be confused with Chaplin's THE CIRCUS or even the MARX BROTHERS AT THE CIRCUS. No, these full-length films have plot--this film has practically none--just a lot of laughs.
2 Reviews
A Bit Too Chaotic, But Contains Some Very Good Material
Snow Leopard3 December 2004
Although this short comedy is too chaotic to make it completely satisfying, it does contain some very good material. With a little care and restraint, it might have ranked among the better short comedies of its era. As is, it is worth seeing, but the individual gags are better than the movie as a whole, which does not really fit together very well.
The story has Billy Bevan and Andy Clyde as two circus hands who cause a series of mishaps with the circus's equipment and animals. The two work pretty well together, and most of the gags work fine in themselves. Some of the best gags feature the circus animals, especially the lions, who are used rather creatively.
What keeps it from being better is that the good material is packed together haphazardly, making the whole rather less than the sum of its parts. There is enough gag material here for two 20-minute features, and they could have made it much better by saving some of the gags, and spending more time carefully setting up each gag that remained, so as to give it the maximum effect.
Even as it is, "Circus Today" is still worth seeing. And to be sure, many other comedy film-makers - both then and today - make this same mistake, thinking that the more jokes they squeeze into their movies, the better. Getting the right timing and delivery can be harder than coming up with the gag ideas in the first place. But there's still no question that many of the basic ideas in this movie are funny and imaginative.
The story has Billy Bevan and Andy Clyde as two circus hands who cause a series of mishaps with the circus's equipment and animals. The two work pretty well together, and most of the gags work fine in themselves. Some of the best gags feature the circus animals, especially the lions, who are used rather creatively.
What keeps it from being better is that the good material is packed together haphazardly, making the whole rather less than the sum of its parts. There is enough gag material here for two 20-minute features, and they could have made it much better by saving some of the gags, and spending more time carefully setting up each gag that remained, so as to give it the maximum effect.
Even as it is, "Circus Today" is still worth seeing. And to be sure, many other comedy film-makers - both then and today - make this same mistake, thinking that the more jokes they squeeze into their movies, the better. Getting the right timing and delivery can be harder than coming up with the gag ideas in the first place. But there's still no question that many of the basic ideas in this movie are funny and imaginative.
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