The Devil's Circus is a 1926

1926 in film

-Events:*August - Warner Brothers debuts the first Vitaphone film, Don Juan. The Vitaphone system used multiple 33⅓ rpm disc records developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric to play back audio synchronized with film....

 drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by Danish director Benjamin Christensen

Benjamin Christensen

Benjamin Christensen was a Danish film director, screenwriter and an actor both in film and on the stage. As a director he is most well known for the 1922 film Häxan and as an actor, he is best known for his performance in the film Michael , in which he plays Claude Zoret, the jilted lover of the...

, based upon his screenplay. The film stars Norma Shearer

Norma Shearer

Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s...

 and Charles Emmett Mack

Charles Emmett Mack

Charles Emmett Mack , was an American film actor during the silent film era. He appeared in 17 films between 1916 and 1927. Born Charles Emmett McNerney in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Mack was a protégé of pioneering film director D. W...

. It was the first of seven films directed by Christensen in the United States, and one of only four of those films that have not been lost.

Plot

Mary and Carlstop are a trapeze artist and a pickpocket who get themselves almost fatally involved with Lieberkind, a lion-tamer, and his jealous wife Yonna.

Cast

• Norma Shearer
  Norma Shearer
  Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s...
  
   - Mary
• Charles Emmett Mack
  Charles Emmett Mack
  Charles Emmett Mack , was an American film actor during the silent film era. He appeared in 17 films between 1916 and 1927. Born Charles Emmett McNerney in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Mack was a protégé of pioneering film director D. W...
  
   - Carlstop
• Carmel Myers
  Carmel Myers
  Carmel Myers was an American actress who worked chiefly in silent movies.Myers was born in San Francisco, the daughter of an Australian rabbi and Austrian Jewish mother. Her father became well-connected with California's emerging film industry, and introduced her to film pioneer D. W. Griffith,...
  
   - Yonna
• John Miljan
  John Miljan
  John Miljan was an American actor of Serbian origin. He appeared in 201 films between 1924 and 1958.He died from cancer.-Selected filmography:* The Lone Chance * Silent Sanderson...
  
   - Lieberkind
• Claire McDowell
  Claire McDowell
  Claire McDowell was an American actress of the silent era. She appeared in 360 films between 1908 and 1945. Still somewhat of a youthful beauty when she started in early silent films she appeared in numerous short & early feature films. She graduated to playing character and mother types...
  
   - Mrs. Peterson
• Joyce Coad
  Joyce Coad
  Joyce Coad was a child actress in motion pictures from Wyoming.-Child prodigy:Coad was the survivor of triplets whose parents died shortly after she was born. She was adopted by a childless couple and taken to Los Angeles, California...
  
   - Little Anita

Preservation Status

The Devil's Circus has been preserved by the George Eastman House. Funding for the film's restoration was provided by The Film Foundation

The Film Foundation

The Film Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation founded by director Martin Scorsese in 1990.-External links:*...

.