6.2 /10 1 Votes6.2
| 6.2/10 IMDb | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Produced by Leslie ParkynJulian WintleexecutiveNat CohenStuart Levy Starring Anton DiffringErika RembergYvonne MonlaurDonald PleasenceJane HyltonJack Gwillim Music by Franz ReizensteinMuir Mathieson Initial release April 1960 (United Kingdom) Cast Similar Donald Pleasence movies, Physician movies, Horror movies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Circus of Horrors is a 1960 British horror film directed by Sidney Hayers. It stars Anton Diffring, Yvonne Monlaur, Erika Remberg, Kenneth Griffith, Jane Hylton, Conrad Phillips, Yvonne Romain and Donald Pleasence.
Contents
Film critic David Pirie considered it to be the third entry in Anglo-Amalgamated's "Sadian trilogy" in his book A Heritage of Horror (1971), because the films focus on sadism, cruelty and violence (with sexual undertones) as opposed to the supernatural horror of the Hammer films in the same era. The previous films in the trilogy were Horrors of the Black Museum and Peeping Tom, both in 1959. It was released in the United States by American International Pictures as a double feature with The Angry Red Planet.
Plot
In 1940s England, Dr. Rossiter (Anton Diffring) is a plastic surgeon wanted by the police after an operation goes hideously wrong. However, believing himself to have brilliant abilities as a surgeon, he and his assistants (Kenneth Griffith and Jane Hylton) evade capture and escape to the Continent. There Rossiter changes his name to Schüler, and befriends a circus owner (Donald Pleasence) on whose deformed daughter Nicole (played by Carla Challoner as a child, Yvonne Monlaur as an adult) he operates.
Schüler manipulates his way into running the circus, taking it over when the owner dies in a "freak accident". A decade later, he is running an internationally successful circus, which he uses as a front for his surgical exploits. He befriends deformed women and transforms them for his "Temple of Beauty". However, when they threaten to leave, they meet with mysterious accidents which raise the suspicions of local police (Conrad Phillips among them), who are soon on his trail.
Production
After the success of Horrors of the Black Museum, Anglo-Amalgamated and AIP tried to duplicate its success with this film.
The film was shot at Beaconsfield Film Studios, with location filming on Clapham Common in London and in Old Amersham, Buckinghamshire. Billy Smart's Circus provided the big top and some of its performers appeared as extras.
The score was provided between Franz Reizenstein and Muir Mathieson. Douglas Slocombe was the cinematographer.
The song "Look For A Star", written by Tony Hatch under his pseudonym Mark Anthony, originated in this movie. In the United States, there were four versions issued at the same time that charted:
In the UK the original Garry Mills version was released on the Top Rank label and reached #7 in the charts in July 1960 (the Garry Miles version was also released, but failed to chart at all).