I Watch Films: Berserk!

 

Berserk!

The high wire man at the Great Rivers Circus* dies, strangled when his wire breaks. It might have been sabotage! Monica Rivers, ringmaster and (part-) owner notes that the tragedy has brought in lots of punters. Her (secret) business partner and circus manager thinks this too heartless and gruesome and wants to be bought out, which she can’t afford.

Hawkins, an even more daring high wire walker arrives. He does his act with a bag over his head (allowing a stunt man to do the tricks rather than actor Ty Hardin) and with steel bayonets beneath. Then the business manager is murdered. A dapper police detective arrives to investigate. Hawkins has a motive for the previous high wire man, Rivers for the manager. And the circus turns out to be a hotbed of intrigue, gossip and feuding even before Rivers daughter Angela arrives, expelled from her school.

It's not quite a murder mystery, more a story about love, money and death in a weird contained community. A community that is a circus, so there are plenty of spectacular circus acts, especially the animal ones they don’t do any more because they were tremendously cruel.

Watch This: Circus acts, murder and plotting, oh my!
Don’t Watch This: Gruesome murder, confused plot and absolutely no reason to call the film Berserk!

 

* Not Circus Berserkus, which would be a great name for a circus. The actual circus acts are played by acts from Billy Smart’s Circus