Blu-ray, DVD Release: The Circus

By
Laurence
– October 3, 2019Find Others: Blu-ray, DVD, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: , , , ,

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Sept. 24, 2019
Price: DVD $21.89, Blu-ray $27.99
Studio: Criterion

In 1928’s The Circus, the last film he made during the silent era, Charlie Chaplin (Modern Times) revels in the art of the circus, paying tribute to the acrobats and pantomimists who inspired his virtuoso pratfalls.

After being mistaken for a pickpocket, Chaplin’s Little Tramp flees into the ring of a traveling circus and soon becomes the star of the show, falling for the troupe’s bareback rider along the way. Despite its famously troubled production, this gag-packed comedy ranks among Chaplin’s finest, thanks to some of the most audacious set pieces of the director-performer’s career, including a close brush with a lion and a climactic tightrope walk with a barrelful of monkeys.

Re-released in 1969 with a new score by Chaplin, The Circus is an uproarious high-wire act that showcases silent cinema’s most popular entertainer at the peak of his comic powers.

Criterion’s editions of the classic comedy include the following:

* New 4K digital restoration of Charlie Chaplin’s 1969 rerelease version of the film, featuring an original score by Chaplin, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
* New audio commentary featuring Charlie Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance
* Interview with Chaplin from 1969
* New interview with Chaplin’s son Eugene Chaplin
* In the Service of the Story, a new program on the film’s visual effects and production design by effects specialist Craig Barron
* Chaplin Today: “The Circus,” a 2003 documentary on the film, featuring filmmaker Emir Kusturica
* Excerpted audio interview with Chaplin musical associate Eric James
* Unused café sequence with new score by composer Timothy Brock, and related outtakes with audio commentary by Chaplin historian Dan Kamin
* Newly discovered outtakes featuring the Tramp and the bareback rider
* Original recording of the film’s opening song, “Swing, Little Girl,” by Ken Barrie
* Footage of the 1928 Hollywood premiere
* Rerelease trailers
* An essay by critic Pamela Hutchinson

Buy or Rent The Circus

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  5. Blu-ray, DVD Release: The Kid (1921)

About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.