Circus Days on AllMovie

Circus Days is the first film version of the James Otis novel Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks With a Circus. Jackie Coogan plays 10-year-old Toby, who runs away from his abusive uncle to join the Big Top. The glamour of circus life tarnishes quickly for Toby, but he sticks it out, graduating from lowly candy vendor to star bareback rider. The boy uses the money earned with the circus to rescue his mother from his hated uncle. Circus Days spares us none of the harsher elements of the Otis novel, in contrast to the dry-cleaning job performed on the 1960 Walt Disney version of Toby Tyler.