Review of King of the Circus

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."