Circus of Fear

John Moxey's Circus of Fear (1967) is available in several different DVD editions, all but one of them (from Blue Underground) totally unauthorized -- as a public-domain movie, that's par for the course. It is one of the newer films in the Alpha Video library; oddly enough, the movie was shot in Eastmancolor, and it appears here in color so washed out as to make one wonder if that were the case, but the producers have credited it as a black-and-white movie (which it was in its original U.S. release), as though they were hedging their bets as to what would pass muster -- or they just plain made a mistake. In any case, this is a poor, but passable, representation of the movie, transferred full-frame (1.33:1) and too dark in the night shots (though they still have some useful picture information when the screen isn't totally black, as it gets for a few seconds at 19 minutes in); there are also some visible splices, including one at a key moment around 20 minutes into the film. The DVD's chaptering is not fully adequate -- the standard Alpha Video six markers hardly suffice on a movie with as much plot and as many twists as this neat little mystery-thriller has to offer. On the other hand, Alpha isn't asking much for it -- this is one release from the company that isn't worth more than the minimal list price it's been given. The disc opens automatically to Alpha's simple two-layer menu.