The Circus

The Circus is a 1928 silent film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin with Joseph Plunkett as an uncredited writer. The film stars Chaplin, Al Ernest Garcia, Merna Kennedy, Harry Crocker, George Davis and Henry Bergman. The story once again follows Chaplin's Little Tramp character. Taken to be part of the circus act, and seeing the profit potential of the Tramp, the ringmaster hires him, but discovers that the Tramp can only be funny unintentionally, not on purpose.

The production of the film was the most difficult experience in Chaplin's career. Numerous problems and delays occurred, including a studio fire, the death of Chaplin's mother, as well as Chaplin's bitter divorce from his second wife Lita Grey, and the Internal Revenue Service's claims of Chaplin's owed back taxes, all of which culminated in filming being stalled for eight months.^[1] The Circus was the seventh highest grossing silent film in cinema history^[2]taking in more than $3.8 million dollars in 1928.

"Chaplins Time Traveler"

In October 2010, Northern Irish filmmaker George Clarke uploaded "Chaplins Time Traveler" , a video clip hosted by YouTube. In the video, Clarke discusses the bonus material contained in the DVD release of the Charlie Chaplin film The Circus (1928). This material contains footage from the film's original Los Angeles premier at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in 1928. In one scene, a woman walks by the camera talking into some type of device, held in her left hand close to her left ear. The clip received millions of hits and became an Internet meme.

Nicholas Jackson, associate editor for The Atlantic, said the device was either a Siemens or Western Electric brand hearing aid. Philip Skroska, an archivist at the Bernard Becker Medical Library of Washington University in St. Louis, thought that the woman might have been holding a rectangular-shaped ear trumpet. It is likely that the device is a hearing aid of the kind manufactured by Acousticon. Other theory's have also been suggested such as the woman is not even holding anything and is simply just covering her face in an attempt to hide from the camera.