Today's Movie Review: MURDER AT THE CIRCUS

This unusual film harkens back to the days of Hollywood past, and the near-genius suspenseful storytelling ability of directors like Alfred Hitchcock. As the title of the film suggests, the setting is, of course, a traveling circus. More specifically, a circus sideshow. As scene one opens, the colorful performers are gathered around a dead body lying in a pool of sticky liquid. As they murmer sadly and shake their heads, the local police chief shows up on the scene. Chief Murray, (played quite well by MTM's Gavin McCleod utters the first line of the film...and it is a doozy: "It could have been worse, I guess. He could have wandered into the gorilla enclosure and been peeled like a banana." The dead body is soon identified as the circus' owner, Trey Ringo......apparently hit on the head with a metal pole wrenched from the nearby merry-go-round and then had his corpse doused with a cup of poisoned lemon shake-up. "Overkill !" mutters the chief as he wanders off to begin his investigation. He quickly hones in on three viable suspects: Bootsie the Bearded Lady (Trey's ex-wife), Tillie the Ticket-Taker, and Trey's current girlfriend - Penelope, the proprietor of the popcorn concession. {reviewer's note: it is at this point that the director reveals one of the greatest casting coups in recent Hollywood history: the three women are played by a heavily disguised but still recognizable famous television trio - Maureen McCormick, Eve Plumb, and Susan Olsen}. As the plot begins to unfold, the audience learns of each character's possible motive. Bootsie the Bearded Lady believed that if her ex were to die, leaving no blood relative (they had no children) she would inherit the circus and get rich. Trey's new squeeze, Penelope, believed that before his death her boyfriend had named her to inherit via the new will he had penned in anticipation of their upcoming marriage. {spoiler alert: he hadn't!} And suspect #3, Tillie, had just been accused by the dead man of skimming the take in the ticket booth. {spoiler alert: she was!) The plot thickens further when each woman offers an unshakable alibi. It seems Bootsie was visiting a local barber getting a trim on her beard; Penelope was at the local COSTCO warehouse buying several large cases of un-popped popcorn in preparation for the next day's business; and Tillie the ticket-taker was in her trailer watching television with the traveling troupe's resident animal trainer, Tommy Teriffic (tiger tricks extrordinaire). { Here the audience is treated to the site of an un-billed cameo by none other than - Sean Connery!} It turns out that he was Trey's wayward Scottish brother, Thomas Ringo, and that HE, in fact, as the late circus owner's only living blood relative, is the one set to inherit the three ring extravaganza. As for the actual culprit? I canna tell you.....it would spoil the ending.