Man on a Tightrope

Notable in that director Elia Kazan had recently surrendered names of Communist Party members to congress, and actor Adolphe Menjou was one of Hollywood’s leading anti-Communists, here playing a Czechoslovak propaganda officer, collared by a superior (Philip Kenneally) for going soft on a wayward circus troupe, in Man On A Tightrope, 1953.

Summoned by officials of the communist Czechoslovak government, circus manager Cernik (Fredric March) explains to interrogator John Dehner about his staff, and his difficulty in presenting politically skewed skits, with propagandist Adolphe Menjou listening, in Elia Kazan’s Man On A Tightrope, 1953.

Ever-interesting work by director Elia Kazan, Gloria Grahame as the maybe-straying circus manager’s wife Zama, determined to flirt with the worried lion tamer (Alex D’Arcy), then another relationship emphasizing idyllic Bavarian locations, with the manager’s daughter Terry Moore and boyfriend Cameron Mitchell, in Man On A Tightrope, 1953.

Opening with noise and some scale, shooting on location in Bavaria, Germany, director Elia Kazan introduces leading man Fredric March as circus boss Cernik, Gloria Grahame his wife, Paul Hartman his aide, Terry Moore his daughter, Cameron Mitchell her friend, in the feature Kazan made after Viva Zapata! but before On The Waterfront, Man On A Tightrope, 1953.