El circo fantasma

A circus in 1950's communist Czechoslovakia makes a dash into the US zone. Being circus people, they have no ostensible political priorities, but the owner, who also dresses up as a clown (Frederic March), seems to have been pushed to take the drastic measure because the communist party functionaries led by Adolphe Menjou find his overall attitude lacking in any discernible commitment. March's daughter in the film is the striking Terry Moore who has fallen for a mysterious circus laborer played by Cameron Mitchell. March's wife is sexy Gloria Graham. The two of them (Moore and Graham) both add a lot. The film makes the distinction in this circus between the artists and the workers. The communists want a workers' paradise and seem to try to make the circus toe the line. The leader of the circus workers is played by Richard Boone, whose part has bought into the communist ideology. The circus midgets also play vital roles in this film, which does not waste any of its actors. The black and white photography matches the stereotypical drab lives in the communist sectors. Menjou, as the communist party leader, is on to March, but, being Menjou, he too becomes a target of operatives in his own party. Directed by Elia Kazan, the film is a real surprise. The overall plot to escape with the circus reaches a well drawn out ending, with even the circus elephants making the dash west.

One of the more intelligent anti-Communist movies that came out in the Fifties was Man On A Tightrope, shot in Bavaria as close as 20th Century Fox could get to Czechoslovakia where the story takes place. Fredric March plays the lead, a circus owner who seemingly knuckles under to the new rulers of his country. For that his daughter Terry Moore is concerned with his mental health. His second wife Gloria Grahame thinks he's become a spineless weakling and starts casting her eyes about the rest of the show.

Not so because March has been ruminating about a plan to get over the border to West Germany and freedom and it's quite the scheme. But it will involve split second timing and the right opportunity which seems to have presented itself. He does have a traitor in his ranks who reports to the local party things in the performance that don't quite tow the party line. When local commissar Adolphe Menjou gives March an ideological pep talk about his clown routine, March realizes he'd better flee and fast.

This film was directed by Elia Kazan who has come down to us sadly as a friendly House Un-American Activities witness and was sadly booed at the Academy Awards when he got a lifetime achievement award. Kazan's long life ended in irony when Pat Buchanan spoke a eulogy on one of the talk shows. Then as now Buchanan was a guy Kazan would have despised, he always considered himself a man of the left.

But in his theater days he saw just how rigid and ideological Communists can be. I've long been convinced that each and every person who appeared at HUAC, friendly or hostile, each did it with his own motives and agenda, some good, some evil. Adolphe Menjou for instance was a rabid rightwinger who left a nice size bequest to the John Birch Society. His agenda was different certainly than Kazan's.

More than On The Waterfront which has come down in film history as Elia Kazan's apologia for being a stool pigeon, Man On A Tightrope is a far more personal work. March is playing Kazan as artist resenting any political intrusion of any kind in his work. Unless you realize that this film will have no meaning.

Kazan assembled a truly good cast and got some great performances, especially from Fredric March. Man On A Tightrope should be seen by today's audience for a real understanding of the era and of Elia Kazan.

This is an interesting movie about the members of a circus troupe trying to flee Communist domination while battling amongst themselves. Adolphe Menjou is spectacular as a down-on-his-luck government functionary. Gloria Grahame is chilling in her scenes. Richard Boone and Cameron Mitchell lend professional support.

...which is set in the Communist-ruled Czechoslovakia of 1952. Fredric March owns a small-time circus, except that now it's been taken over by the state, which wants to micromanage everything, right down to the clown acts. March and his performers want to escape across the border to part of Germany controlled by the Americans.

The film was shot in Bavaria, which is a big plus. The gritty, run-down circus atmosphere is nicely caught. We can see that although this is hardly a first-rate outfit, it still provides needed entertainment and escape for those who watch the show. As one might expect, the Communists have spies in the circus, and March doesn't know who to trust. His daughter (Terry Moore) has the hots for a young roustabout (Cameron Mitchell) who seems to have come from nowhere. His wife (Gloria Grahame) has the Gloria Grahame thing going on of despising her husband and looking around for someone to betray him with (Richard Boone seems a likely prospect). Betrayal is one of the big themes of the film. Even the Communist officials are looking for ways to betray each other.

This is one of my favorite Fredric March performances, particularly from this part of his career. Among a number of strong supporting performances by men, Adolphe Menjou stands out as a Communist official who sees March as dangerous precisely because he is an honest man. Menjou has remarkable presence every moment he's on screen.

Kazan gave a lot of credit to his producer, Gerd Oswald, and his cameraman, Georg Kraus. It's a solid film, and I look forward to seeing it again.

Kazan, in his "A Life", describes this movie mostly in terms of early-morning bonding with his crew, but while it contains far fewer emotional lightning-bolts than most Kazan films, it also contains some incredibly poetic violence. Even though it's hard to tell if it's just hastily staged or artistically muted, one shot of a sentry being killed just below the screen is both intimate and shielding. The battle scenes are exciting, short, and brilliant. Kazan takes no credit at all, saying that much of the film was devised by producer Gerd Oswald and cinematographer Georg Kraus. Strange and sparse, this is a very interesting film.