Top Ten Juggling Scenes in Movies

Every time I watch this “Me Ol’ Bamboo” dance number it just makes me ridiculously happy. It contains nothing more technical (in terms of spinning) than a neck roll but the group choreography is sublime, super tight and full of character. It also helps that Dick Van Dyke wisely refused to attempt a British accent again after his much mocked cockney accent debacle in Mary Poppins, four years earlier.

W.C. Fields started off his career as a vaudeville juggler and this scene is based on his original routines. I find his comedy cigar box manipulation to be particularly hilarious. He performed his early juggling routines silently because he used to have a stutter so it’s impressive that he went on to become famous for his sardonic one liners.

It’s not a lot of contact juggling but it’s beautifully interwoven into the plot of a fantastic movie staring David Bowie’s crotch. The behind the scenes footage of Moschen trying to do all these moves blind and standing in awkward positions behind Bowie is almost better than the scenes themselves. Jim Henson described Moschen’s contact juggling as “as close real magic as anything that I really know”.

This is probably the most technical juggling in a mainstream movie. It also happens to be an amusing little scene where in-between Trixie’s masterful manipulations she interacts with none other than Fred Astaire. I really love how clean and seemingly effortlessly she juggles six plates.

There’s actually some really cool “blink and you’ll miss them” juggling tricks in here, curtesy of the quirky geniuses that are the Flying Karamazovs and they even get to deliver lines while juggling. Also Avner the Eccentric gets a lead role (as the *spoiler* titular “Jewel”) and does a bit of juggling and balancing.

It’s fairly common to see little snippets of stunning prop manipulation in martial arts movies, but this really feels like a full sequence showcasing rope dart. Apparently this scene was super challenging to film because Jackie insisted on using a fake horseshoe, not wanting to risk hitting people with a real one.

Imagine getting to be stand-ins for Gomez and Fester! Probably the coolest gig ever. The Mamushka Dance only includes a brief bit of six knife passing but Christopher Lloyd (Fester) does some truly masterful mugging throughout which elevates the whole experience. The full song about “the dance of brotherly love” is much longer (it can be found on the soundtrack) but the scene was cut down because people found it dull.

Bruce Lee’s final movie and the movie which largely popularized kung fu movies in the US. This nunchaku scene was so good that the British Board of Film Classification cut it from video releases (until as recently as 2001) because they were worried about London youths copying Bruce’s awesome moves. It’s a little dated but it’s in here for cultural reasons.

A great ball routine followed by an equally great hat routine both executed with verve and panache. This is one of my favorite jugglers and would place much higher on the list if it was more integrated into the movie, as opposed to just being hidden behind the closing credits.

A memorable scene in which “Pig Eye Jackson” aka Steve Martin juggles “live” cats. It’s pretty funny and the movie makes a big deal of it so it’s in the top ten even though he just does a three cat cascade and a bit of two cats in one hand. Roll the ugliness!

Water spouting is the artful regurgitation of water at will like a human fountain. This scene is from the Spanish-language version of Laurel and Hardy’s “Chickens Come Home”. It’s really more sideshow than juggling so I’ve included it as a bonus. He’s actually swallowing kerosene which is mad and you really really shouldn’t try it. I particularly like that over half his routine is simply him drinking small glasses of water.