Berserk! - Reception

Reception

Howard Thompson gave the film a mostly negative review in The New York Times, comparing it unfavorably to Circus of Horrors, but also commented, "It's also hard to make a hopeless movie with a circus background and sawdust aroma. This is the one solid thing the picture has going for it—the intriguing workaday routine of circus folk and some good, spangly ring acts, all handsomely conveyed in excellent color photography. And under the reasonable direction of Jim O'Connolly, the film does project a kind of defiant suspense that dares you not to sit there, see who gets it next and, finally, why." He goes on to state that Crawford "...is professional as usual and certainly the shapeliest ringmaster ever to handle a ring microphone."

Frank Leyendecker in Greater Amusements wrote, "Joan Crawford gives authority and extreme conviction to the colorful role of a circus owner and ringmaster...she consistently rises above the highly melodramatic, yet exploitable, material."

Lawrence Quirk wrote in Hollywood Screen Parade, " is all over the picture, radiant, forceful, authoritative, a genuine movie star whose appeal never diminishes."