Life Is a Circus

For the song, see Michael Holliday.

Life Is a Circus
Directed byVal Guest
Written byVal Guest
Len Heath
John Warren
Produced byJohn Pellatt
E.M. Smedley-Aston
StarringBud Flanagan
Teddy Knox
Jimmy Nervo
Jimmy Gold
CinematographyArthur Graham
Edited byJames B. Clark
Bill Lenny
Music byPhilip Green
Production
company
Vale Film Productions
Distributed byBritish Lion Films
Release date
  • 16 February 1960 (1960-02-16)
Running time
84 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Life is a Circus is a 1960 British comedy film directed by Val Guest[1] and starring Bud Flanagan, Teddy Knox, Jimmy Nervo, Jimmy Gold and Charlie Naughton of the Crazy Gang. The screenplay concerns a down-on-its-luck circus that uses an Aladdin's Magic Lamp to try to save their business.

The film is generally considered inferior to the Crazy Gang's previous screen appearances.[2]

Cast

Production

Val Guest said British Lion and E.M. Smedley-Aston "called me up and said “We want to make another picture with The Crazy Gang, are you interested?” and I said “Yes.” Because he said that they’d mentioned me or something…so the whole idea was to write a picture for the Crazy Gang. There we were writing for the Crazy Gang again, and all the boys got together again; we made this circus film for which we put up a big tent in Windsor, near the castle and shot it. They were all exactly the same, they hadn’t changed." Guest felt the film "worked, but I think the humour became dated... however much you tried to update it a bit was difficult. It wasn’t a success. I mean I don’t think it lost money, but it certainly didn’t make anything."[3]

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Script and settings here simply provide a flimsy framework for knockabout antics in which the Crazy Gang disarm criticism by their innocent and undisciplined enthusiasm. As writer-director, Val Guest seems to take control only for an elaborate and hilarious trapeze sequence and the rather tedious romantic interludes with the self-consciously charming Michael Holliday. The woodenness of the small team of extras, and the almost total absence of children, make the circus and funfair scenes strikingly unplausible."[4]

References

  1. ^ Alan Burton; Steve Chibnall (11 July 2013). Historical Dictionary of British Cinema. Scarecrow Press. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-8108-8026-9.
  2. ^ David R. Sutton (January 2000). A Chorus of Raspberries: British Film Comedy 1929-1939. University of Exeter Press. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-85989-603-0.
  3. ^ Fowler, Roy (1988). "Interview with Val Guest". British Entertainment History Project.
  4. ^ "Life Is a Circus". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 27 (312): 38. 1 January 1960 – via ProQuest.


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