This feature stands alongside "The Gold Rush" and "Modern Times" as among Chaplin's best. If it lacks the exoticism and technological sophistication of the other two, it has some marvelously funny set pieces.<br /><br />Chaplin, as the Tramp, gets mixed up with a pickpocket while visiting the circus. Mistaken by the police for the criminal, he runs into the center of a clown act in the center ring and, without intending to, wows the audience in a way the clowns never did. His next escape attempt leads him into a magician's act in which he finds himself, to wild applause, frantically trying to stuff various small animals -- doves, ducks, piglets -- back into top hats on a table but finds himself swimming in the little beasts. There is a scene, lasting only a few minutes, in which Chaplin imitates a mechanical man that is about as funny as anything he's done.<br /><br />The inevitable sentiment is damped down. There is a circus girl that Chaplin falls for, but she is attracted to a newcomer, a debonair tightrope walker. It doesn't interfere with the comedy.<br /><br />There's no point in going on too long about the plot. It's mostly a series of set pieces. But the plots never meant too much in Chaplin's films from this period anyway.<br /><br />Recommended without qualification.