Trapeze Details

Shot at the Cirque d'Hiver in Paris, this simmering melodrama was something of a departure for director Carol Reed after two decades of typically British themes interspersed with central European thrillers. However, Reed always knew where to place his camera and he achieves some of the finest ever big-top shots thanks to the high-flying work of Robert Krasker, the cinematographer responsible for those stunning angles in Reed's masterpiece The Third Man. Burt Lancaster, an acrobat before he entered films, is perfectly cast as the only person to have completed the triple somersault, while Tony Curtis gives a good account of himself as both Lancaster's pupil and his rival for the affections of tumbler Gina Lollobrigida.

Concentrated, intense melodrama filmed almost entirely within a French winter circus and giving a very effective feel, almost a smell, of the life therein. Despite great skill in the making, however, the length is too great for a wisp of plot that goes ba