King of the Circus

KING OF THE CIRCUS is not very good. Maybe it's missing some stuff. There weren't even any intertitles in the print I watched. It's usually listed as Max Linder's final completed film. He plays a rich man's son, a guy who lives a dissolute life. He happens to meet a girl in the park (a very hefty looking Vilma Banky) where he's doing some target practice. He follows her to the circus where she's an aerialist. After various incidents, he takes over the lion tamer's act. He becomes a circus star and wins the girl. He seems way too old (early 40s) and world weary for the part, and Vilma has basically nothing to do. Yes, there is some good bits of physical comedy but maybe he was trying to add pathos a la Chaplin. It doesn't work. I wonder if this circus picture influenced Chaplin's later big top film.

Max Linder, who battled depression after serving in World War I) would kill himself the following year and Vilma Banky would be whisked off to Hollywood where she became a big star until the talkies came in. This film, alas, does nothing for their reputations.

Thanks to Serge Bromberg, and all who worked so hard to restore this film from eleven different film elements, nine different film archives or collectors. It is a charming comedy with lots of inventive gags. If you get a chance to see it do, it's a delightful charmer from the man who Charlie Chaplin said inspired him. In the intro we heard the story as to why it disappeared, because Max Linder commited suicide soon after it was finished for personal reasons. And no one wanted to be reminded of that tragedy so his films just dropped from theaters and the audiences memories. But he was a genius somewhere between Chaplin and Raymond Griffith. "In her 1983 documentary on Max Linder, The Man in the Silk Hat, Maud Linder says of Max Linder's rarely-found final feature film (made in Austria): "Nothing remains of this great film but a few stills and scraps of footage, unscreenable today". Fortunately, more of the film was later found."