Man on a Tightrope

This little movie is an exciting sleeper. It is a fictional story of a real incident about a small circus in an Eastern Bloc country that planned to escape to the West during the cold war. With uniformly excellent performances by all one of its unique accomplishments is the creation of a real sense of place. Although most of the cast is North American and speak in English, through the use of carefully written dialog, well thought out characterizations and wordrobe you have no doubt that you are in a foreign country listening to people speaking in their own language.

A real candidate for resurrection and re-isse.

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.

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.

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.

This is a particularly fine film, but the other users missed an item that I would like to mention.

Namely, communism or, rather, the specific type of communism which was practiced within the old Soviet Empire, was a subtle poison to the human spirit.

In a critical scene, just before the fatal run across the border, the Circus manager questions a roustabout about his betrayal of his community(the Circus) and everyone whom he ever knew there. This man, with a straight face, announces that he and the other manual laborers are the heart and essence of the circus. Along with the movie audience, the manager(played by veteran actor Frederick March) is shocked that anyone could convince himself that people come to see him and his fellows, not the aerialists, not the lion tamer nor even the clowns.

There are no paranoid political rants here, but that form of communism is "busted" for its "divide and conquer" tactics. People took appalling risks to flee communism and this film gives the viewer part of why they were willing to take them. I couldn't imagine then and I can't imagine now that "a higher standard of living" was the reason for this.