Circus Stars (1958)

USSR. Original title: Artisty tsirka. Crowd-pleasing performances from renowned juggler and clown Oleg Popov, tiger trainer Margarita Nazarova, dancing bears and others highlight this profile of a Russian circus.

Features the juggling act of Oleg Popov. His sequence, which runs almost ten minutes, closes the film. Among other bits, he presents two juggling acts.

He first performs with kitchen articles while dressed as a chef. He begins with several interesting moves with two and three plates. He does sliding moves with three plates and works up to three in one hand.

Next is a fork, plate and apple, ending with the fork balanced on his forehead. The apple is thrown high into the air, seemingly to land on the tines of the fork. But it crashes onto his forehead instead and breaks apart for a surprise gag finish.

Next he juggles two prop forks and a potato, catching the vegetable on the prongs of one fork. Then he throws the second fork so that it sticks into the legume.

He follows with a plate, pot and potato juggle sequence, ending up with the potato in the pot and plate on it acting as a lid or cover. He then spins the pot on his finger, and does a finger transfer move behind his back while bending over. Then he spins another pot so that one is spinning on each finger. He finishes by carefully putting one spinning pot onto the other without the spinning action being arrested in the slightest degree.

His second juggling act is done on the slack wire, and is played for more laughs than his first sequence. He works with a standard curved handle cane and his soft cap. He cleverly flips the cap from his head to the head of his cane, which is held behind him. He balances the cane on his forehead and throws the cap up onto it. Thusly balanced on the slack wire with the cane and hat balanced on his forehead, he juggles four rings.

His finishing trick has him balancing on one foot on the wire while his left hand spins a ring on his cane, his right hand juggles two rings, a ring spins on his left foot, he spins a ring on a mouth prop and keeps another going on the wire on which he balances.