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12 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
nifty little english take on the krimi genre, 21 January 2004

Author: witold_tietze from brisbane, australia

this movie proved to be a surprisingly effective spin on the then popular german genre of the "krimi": a series of films, often from edgar wallace source novels, which tend to defy the generic conventions of crime dramas by moving into horror, espionage, even sci-fi at times.

beginning with an energetically directed heist sequence, the film soon shifts gear and location, focussing on the machinations of circus folk, in particular the various affairs and double-dealings of a handful of seemingly innocent and not so innocent clowns, midgets, knife-throwers and lion tamers. the two stories are linked, but only about as much as the two stories in "psycho" are linked: one is there to purely to feed the other.

there are twists and turns galore in this film; perhaps a few too many to be entirely plausible. some of the dialogue scenes are a little stilted, too. however, john moxey's direction tends to keep things going quite well, with some surprisingly sophisticated and kinetic direction. (note, for example, the way the loop of gregor's whip hovers around mr big's head to symbolise his attempts to psychologically ensnare his blackmailer.)

performances are generally quite solid, including from the imported german cast (there presumably to keep west german krimi fans happy), and there are definitely a couple of standouts. klaus kinski is unintelligible a usual, especially as he's forever got a cigarette in his mouth, but his presence lifts the film quite a bit. christopher lee is the only crashing disappointment, as he doesn't appear until act two, he's in a mask for most of the film, and his russian accent wavers a little. he really has no definitive presence here, and it's not particularly his story. i'd also have recast a lot of the police officers for a modern audience, as although they're quite old-fashioned (think dixon of dock green or pc 49), their dialogue would suit the stars of "the sweeney" with little adjustment. but then, in a microcosm of the characteristically unusual, perhaps a little grounding in sanity isn't so bad!

overall, this was a surprisingly effective film. i've only seen the restored 91-minute version that's available on dvd, so perhaps a slightly shorter version with some of the duller dialogue scenes cut down would hold the attention a bit better. (can't be as bad as the p;d 65-minute version, though, even if the film does hold up okay in b&w.) but this is definitely a film worth seeing, especially if you want a decent introduction to the world of the krimi. just don't see it if you want a big christopher lee vehicle -- he had more presence in "dracula", and he was only in six minutes of that!

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10 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Whodunnit ? Whodunnwhat ? Who to ? And Who's He ?, 21 July 2004

Author: Simon James (smudged68) from Herefordshire, England

Christopher Lee in "Circus Of Fear". It's got to be a horror movie, right ? Well, no. "Circus Of Fear" is a pretty classic-style whodunnit full of red herrings and characters with skeletons in their cupboards.

It starts with a very dramatic and almost silent armoured car heist which goes terribly wrong when a security guard is shot and killed. The gang escape and divide up the loot, saving one share for their boss who only communicates with them via the phone and who none of them have ever seen. The action soon moves to the winter quarters of Barberini's circus - which appears to be somewhere in Berkshire! There is a quite surreal shot of a line of elephants and camels moving down a suburban street. The rest of the film takes place here, its anglo-German cast perfectly capturing the international flavour of the circus. And it is here that the murder mystery element of the film really takes off. Leo Genn is 'Gentleman Jim' Elliott, the police inspector investigating the heist. Though it seems most of the circus folk are keeping an eye on each other. Christopher Lee makes a startling appearance as Gregor, the lion tamer, who wears a black hood at all times to hide the horrible scars he received when he was attacked by a lion. The film was written and produced by Harry Alan Towers, for whom Lee made the series of Fu Manchu pictures, and directed by John Moxey, for whom he had made the 1959 occult chiller "City Of The Dead". There are pleasures to be had from cameo appearances by the likes of Cecil Parker as Elliott's superior and Klaus Kinski who gets to lurk menacingly as a member of the gang. It's not long before more bodies start piling up. But who is the killer ? Is it Barberini, the circus owner with financial troubles ? Mario, the jealous knife-thrower ? Maybe it's Mr. Big, the blackmailer ? Or Karl, the ringmaster with an unhealthy interest in Gina, Mario's girlfriend ? Or maybe it's Gregor, whose brother is in jail for murder ? I've seen the film. I know the truth. The killer is..Aaaarghh!

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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Neat whodunit, 22 April 2006

Author: gridoon

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)

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6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
CIRCUS OF FEAR (John Moxey, 1966) **1/2, 13 October 2006

Author: MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta

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)!

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Messy but fun sixties thriller, 25 August 2007

Author: The_Void from Beverley Hills, England

Circus of Fear is based on a novel by Edgar Wallace; the same writer who spawned the German "Krimi" style of film-making. This film is a British take on the Krimi style and comes out something like a Hammer Horror mystery, though the film is not without its problems. That's possibly why this film is not easy to come by; as despite the fact that it stars Christopher Lee in an interesting role as a circus lion tamer, Circus of Fear, at times, isn't all that easy to get along with as the plot is really quite messy and the horror that goes along with the central mystery often gets in the way. The plot begins with a botched heist that ends with one of the criminals shooting a police officer. The shooter is given the chance to go and give the boss his share before being allowed to flee the country; but unfortunately, he is murdered upon his arrival at the meeting place. The action then switches to the local circus where is believed that the identity of the murderer will be revealed. There we are introduced to a whole host of shady and mysterious characters...

The film is directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, who previously directed Christopher Lee in the excellent, fog-soaked, City of the Dead. Said previous film is a better one as the plot worked better; but while Circus of Fear doesn't always work well, the things that do work are very good and the film never gets boring. The cast is headed by Christopher Lee who is grim and imposing in his role as a horribly scarred and masked lion tamer. The film also features a small role for the great Klaus Kinski, as well as sound performances from British performers Anthony Newlands, Leo Genn and Margeret Lee. The film presents a lot of suspects and it soon becomes easier to just watch it rather than try and guess who the killer is. However, the two twists in the tale can be guessed (the first one is very obvious) without putting too much strain on the viewer, which is a shame. City of the Dead was all about atmosphere and this film is fairly atmospheric too, though not nearly to the same extent as the earlier film, which is another shame. Overall, Circus of Fear is not a great film; but it's entertaining enough and I can recommend it.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Not a bad whodunit, 1 March 2008

Author: TheatreX from Louisville, KY

Based on an Edgar Wallace story, "Circus of Fear" is a whodunit, not a horror film. It begins with an armored car heist in which a guard is killed, and while the perpetrators do get away they're eventually caught, all except one, who has escaped with a bag of money to "the Old Farm", where he's killed upon arrival. I guess The Old Farm is winter quarters for a traveling circus, and it's a rather dysfunctional circus family, for sure. There's a dwarf (Mr. Big) who is blackmailing Gregor (Christopher Lee), and there's lots of sneakiness & under-handed goings on as well. Some of the money from the heist turns up in a nearby town & Inspector Elliot (Leo Genn) is on the case. Gregor (Lee) is a mystery, as he wears a black hood as the result of a lion-taming accident got wrong, to hide the scars. Carl, the ringmaster, is associated with the circus for reasons other than are obvious, because he smells a rat and he's out to expose someone for supposedly evil deeds. Klaus Kinski does his patented "lurking about" thing, for no apparently reason since his character seems to be present only as a red herring. Overall this is no great work of art, but it is entertaining and reasonably well done. I also enjoyed the music a lot. If you're interested in this please see the "Blue Underground" release...there's an Alpha Video release which is terrible, with washed-out colors and the usual non-remastered quality. 6 out of 10.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
It' the law of the circus, if a knife ever kills it's never used again, it's buried together with it's victim!, 24 January 2007

Author: sol1218 from brooklyn NY

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

**SPOILER ALERT** Nifty little whodunit thriller set at a traveling circus outside of London that also has to do with an armored car robbery. A robbery that is somehow connected with the big top.

Christopher Lee playing the hooded Russian lion tamer Gregor comes upon this suitcase of some 250,000 pound sterling in the deserted farm, where he keeps his wild animals caged. The cash was taken in the spectacular armored car robber on the London Bridge at the beginning of the movie. Gregor also finds the body of one of the robbers, who was killed, with a knife in his back, there too.

Whoever planned the robbery had the money specifically brought there, the deserted farm house, on the circus grounds by one of his unwitting henchmen corrupt cop Mason, Victor Maddan, and then had him murdered to keep the cash all for himself. The rest of the film "Circus of Fear" has the unseen and unknown killer try to murder anyone who has any idea of who he is. That includes the cheating partner of the jealous and hot headed circus knife-thrower Mario (Maurice Kaufmann) Gina, Margaret Lee, as well as the not to on the ball and creepy person who's supposed to smuggle the stolen cash out to the country for the armored car robbery gang Manfred Hart, Klaus Kinski. With some of the stolen car robbery money being passed around the town where the circus is preforming it soon becomes evident to the Scotland Yard chief investigating this baffling case Elliott, Leo Genn, that the killer is somehow in the circus as a performer. This makes knife-thrower Mario the number one suspect.

Going undercover as a news photographer Scotland Yard inspector Elliott zeros in on lion tamer Gregor and his pretty assistant Natasha, Suzy Kendall. We soon learn of the black-hooded Gregors, who's face was supposedly ripped to shreds by a wild lion, somewhat checkered past and how he may well be helping his recently escaped from prison brother Otto. Otto was convicted of killing the circus' ring master's Carl, Heinz Drache, father. Gregor is also made to look very suspicious in the circus killings when we see that one of the circus performers Mr.Big, Skip Martin, is blackmailing the big hooded guy. This is done by Mr. Big in return for withholding information about Gregor from the police! Just who really is this big and scary-looking guy anyway? can he actually be the escaped killer Otto who's also a wild animal trainer like Gregor and just happens to be the father of Gregor's assistant Natasha?

Interesting twists and turns has you guessing just who the killer is and it takes a major mistake on the killers part. Or was it just his sick and arrogant attempt to gain publicity.In the end It was the killers own greed and vindictiveness in being given thankless menial and humiliating jobs by circus owner Barberini, Anthony Newlands, that made him go so insane and then take out his frustration and anger on everyone in the circus that he felt kept him from being the big star that he always envisioned himself to be.

Planing the London Bridge armored car robbery and using the circus grounds to stash away the money after double-crossing and murdering both his fellow robbers Mason and Manfred the killer's subconscious desire to get attention is what eventually gave him away.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Murders under the big top, 7 January 2006

Author: capkronos (capkronos00@hotmail.com) from Ohio, USA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

If you can make it past the shaky, badly edited opening sequence featuring a slew of criminals robbing an armored truck of a quarter of a million pounds and then escaping in a speedboat, then you may enjoy the rest of this Edgar Wallace adaptation (it does pick up soon after). Cranky Sir John (Cecil Parker) sends police Inspector Elliot (Leo Genn) undercover as a professional photographer to investigate a string of murders at "Barberini's Circus." Among the suspects are Christopher Lee as a hooded lion tamer who never shows his face, Suzy Kendall as his assistant, Anthony Newlands as the cigar-chomping owner, Heinz Drache as the ringmaster, Maurice Kaufman as a bad-tempered knife-thrower with an unfaithful girlfriend (Margaret Lee), Skip Martin as a sneaky, blackmailing dwarf, Eddi Aren't as the prank-playing book keeper and many more. Klaus Kinski (one of the robbers from the opening sequence) also shows up acting weird and 'looking for work' (actually the loot that was stolen at the beginning). Victims end up with knives in their backs, some find the missing money and hide it and there are enough assorted secret agendas, double crosses, back-stabbings, blackmailing, jealousies and rampant criminal activity to keep this interesting enough (though the quality of the print I saw was quite awful). It was filmed at Bray Studios in England and features a pretty good blues score from Johnny Douglas.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
An incomplete film?, 31 August 2000
Author: evilskip (evilskippy@mindspring.com) from In the circus

This movie has more title changes than evilskip's shorts. Psycho Circus, Circus Of Fear etc.It isn't a horror movie but it is a crime movie and I might add it is a crime what has been done to this movie.It may or not be based somewhat loosely on an Edgar Wallace thriller.

A robbery goes awry leading to murder,double crossings, mistaken identities, blackmail and revenge.You've got a great cast, an involving plot and...video distributors that butchered the film.There is at least one reel missing from this print that has some important exposition.Not to mention 15 minutes as well.This print only runs 74 minutes.

I would love to see the complete film.In the meantime this one will have to do.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Don't be fooled by the credits, Lee is not the main star in this one., 28 March 2004

Author: Aaron1375 from Alabama

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.

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