Polly of the Circus (1932)

Directed by Alfred Santell
Starring Marion Davies, Clark Gable and C. Aubrey Smith
Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

The circus comes to a conservative town and the show's star, Polly the trapeze artist, is not pleased.  All of her promotional posters have been...altered.  Some of the locals find the woman's bare legs indecent so her image gets dressed up in a variety of ways.

An outraged Polly tries to confront an elderly priest over his apparent censorship.  Only problem is the old man is just a visiting bishop and the actual pastor in the town is really Clark Gable. I mean, the young John Hartley.

Anyway, John explains he had nothing to do with defacing the posters.  In fact, he is looking forward to catching her show that night.  Polly leaves in a huff and we as an audience hate her because of her complete lack of being Clark Gable.

So what can bring these two together? A horrific accident.


At the circus that night, an angered Polly attempts to perform her act.  And she succeeds until a yelling heckler asks where her pants are.  The momentary distraction is all it takes.  Polly reaches for a trapeze that isn't there and falls forward off the narrow platform.

The moment is critical for making us believe everything that happens for the rest of the film.  The director could have approached it a number of ways.  He could have just cut to the audience reaction.  He could have done a long shot of the fall from across the tent.  He could have simply cut from her misstep to Polly in a hospital bed.

But no. director Alfred Santell places the camera above and gives us the fall from the perspective of the platform. We see he plummet.  And we feel her hit the ground.  And our collective stomach turns.

When Hartley rushes to her aid, volunteering his home across the street as a place to get her help, there is no inkling of romance.  It's an emergency.  Polly is critically injured and needs immediate attention.  We believe this because we saw it in all its brutality.

Making this the starting point for what ultimately turns into a romance makes the path less obvious.  It's not a meet-cute.  It's a meet-ewww.  It makes the rest of the film feel less inevitable than this type of movie typically plays.

Of course, this is Hollywood and it's Clark Gable and a gorgeous Marion Davies.  So she convalesces at his home because she cannot be moved.  And she acts like she hasn't recovered because she wants to stay with John. And they have to fall in love.

Once we get there, the predictability sets in.  Obstacles to their romance appear and you never believe they won't be overcome. The conservative town turns against Hartley and we are supposed to believe that Hartley will care what the town thinks.  But we don't because Hartley is Clark Gable and the town isn't so that is not a fair fight at all.

There's an ending that feels overwrought featuring an implied potential suicide attempt.  And the film features what is fast becoming my least favorite staple of 1930s cinema: the perpetually drunk supporting character.

Polly of the Circus is ultimately an okay movie elevated by terrific lead performances and a cracker of a first act.

*** out of *****