Other IMDb reviewers miss a subtle point. This manages to simultaneously savage communist oppression and anti-communists from the House Un-American Activities Committee. SPOILER: When the secret police question the circus owner, he explains that he has no politics, that circus is his politics, his religion, his life. For the interrogator, all must submit to the primacy of the political. I imagine Kazan felt the same about the theater and his movies, and HUAC certainly demanded the same submission. Watching this on TV today, I thought it was a European film. And no other film from this period that is anti-communist has this degree of sophistication or subtlety. I would love to hear Milos Forman's opinion of this film.
Review of Man on a Tightrope
Man on a Tightrope
(1953)
Brilliant acting, direction and screenplay
16 August 2011
Warning: Spoilers