Review: Circus of Fear

We begin with a daylight robbery of an armoured car in London, which eventually sees most of the crooks nabbed by Scotland Yard inspector Leo Genn, whilst the search continues for ‘inside man’ Victor Maddern who has been instructed by an unseen boss to hide both of their shares of the loot in a secure location, whilst the Yard manage to track down some of the rest of the loot. The trail leads cluey Genn to a circus owned by Anthony Newlands, whilst another gang member (Klaus Kinski) is also skulking about, no doubt up to some kind of no good. Poor Madden finds himself dead before long, however, and soon there are other bodies too. And no trace whatsoever of the money. It appears a masked murderer is bumping people off, and the circus is full of extremely dubious suspects including; Masked lion tamer Gregor (Christopher Lee) whose face was scarred by a lion a few years ago, Carl the ringmaster (heavily accented Michael Pate lookalike Heinz Drache) who seems very interested in the investigation and suspects the lion tamer  is hiding more than his face, a jealous knife thrower (Maurice Kaufmann) who certainly has the tools of the killing trade, and there’s even the small possibility that the resident dwarf (Skip Martin, from “Masque of the Red Death”) is the killer. Yup, I went there. Margaret Lee plays Kaufmann’s girlfriend, a young Suzy Kendall plays Gregor’s daughter, and Cecil Parker turns up from time to time as Genn’s frustrated superior.

 

Boasting one of the worst prints I think I’ve ever seen, this 1966 Harry Alan Towers production from director John Llewellyn Moxey (“Horror Hotel”, also with Christopher Lee), was also scripted by Mr. Towers himself (who produced Christopher Lee’s silly “Fu Manchu” series) under the pseudonym Peter Wellbeck. I think everyone involved would’ve been well advised to adopt a pseudonym, though at least Christopher Lee (by now a bonafide Horror star) gets to hide his face behind a balaclava for 98% of his screen time.

 

It’s a cheap, unconvincingly performed story that you’ll keep watching because of the whodunit aspect. On that front, I must admit I didn’t peg the culprit, but make no mistake, nothing else about this shoddy film works, aside from the OK-at-best performances by Dirk Bogarde-lookalike Anthony Newlands and old pro Cecil Parker (who is barely in it). Leo Genn is surprisingly stiff, Klaus Kinski is barely in it (A shame, because he’s creepy as hell), and Christopher Lee might not as well have been cast given we don’t see his face for the first 70 minutes or so and he’s stuck with a not terribly good Slavic (?) accent. Truth be told, I only watched it because of his involvement (he’s one of my top five favourite actors), but even he doesn’t come out of this one unscathed, balaclava or not.

 

Boring, cheap, and appallingly made. There’s some particularly bad jump cuts at the beginning, too, suggesting some edits. I saw a version that ran for about 90 odd minutes, so it’s definitely not the heavily cut American release. “Circus of Horrors” it ain’t.

 

Rating: D+