I always seek out the work of Vincente Minnelli, a director who gave us many Hollywood classics. This was an interesting film, but not an extremely compelling one.It was all kind of predictable since you could see the handwriting on the wall: the death of Moira, the growing up of Ricky Nelson / Farley Granger, and the ultimate success of Douglas and Angeli. For example, you knew Angeli's character would not die up on the trapeze since she had already suffered the death of her husband. Finding a new love added to her happiness, so it would have been cruel to audiences back then to have her die in the end.I have not yet seen The Red Shoes, so I was not shocked or disappointed how much the sequence resembled the earlier film. Moira and James Mason were both fine. She was a real beauty. According to the TCM host Robert Osborne, a previous film starring Mason was also used as the basis of this sequence too. Leslie Caron is always delightful; her best performance, for me, is in Lili. As for beauty, I have never thought she was beautiful. Cute in an odd way but never beautiful. I thought she was charming. Nelson, Barrymore, and Granger were also fine.Kirk Douglas looked Hollywood hunky and totally like a leading man, one who was almost too handsome for his own good; Angeli's performance had the doe like look of innocence she portrayed well. The trapeze sequences did look realistic, and I suspect Douglas did most of his stunts himself. He was quite the athlete, and he looked convincing in the part. Angeli also looked quite believable as well.The film is worth seeing, even if nothing for the great stars of classic Hollywood.I also enjoyed hearing the Paganini theme; I had loved it in Somewhere in Time as well, so I was surprised to hear it in another earlier film as well.It's worth checking out, but not a film I think I would have the patience to see over and over.

I loved this movie especially the the third segment featuring Pier Angeli. She really did her best portraying a suicidal widow of a Holocaust victim who becomes a trapeze artist after she is saved from drowning by Kirk Douglas's character. I am pretty sure that she relied on her own childhood in Rome for inspiration. She grew up in Rome when World War II was occurring. Her emotional scenes were the best. I can see why Kirk Douglas fell in love with her. It is hard to believe she was only nineteen when she filmed the movie. It is the first color film she did. I think it was be remembered by devoted Anna Maria Pierangeli fans for years to come.

Each of the three love stories would have been worthy of a movie to itself. The second, with Leslie Caron, must rate at least a 7 for anyone who enjoys her, but her work in Lili outshines everything else she has done. The third, with Pier Angeli and Kirk Douglas was a treat even for a viewer who does not usually like Kirk Douglas. It rates a 9 on the basis of the marvelous sequences as he teaches Pier Angeli the art of high wire performance. But it is the first, which deserves 11 out of 10, which makes this film a "must see." I know of no other film in which great orchestral music has been treated with such respect and insight. There are long, uninterrupted sequences of the marvelous Moira Shearer dancing to one of Rachmaninoff's fabulous Variations on a Theme of Paganini. The combination is superlative ballet, and superlative interpretation of a great orchestral work of the late romantic school. As icing on the cake, James Mason is the audience of one as she dances, an irascible impresario who is, quite understandably, overwhelmed by the magic of Shearer's performance. The story ends too soon. At full length, with three times the dancing, and a better love story between Shearer and Mason, it would be a movie I might expect to see in Heaven. It makes the whole film easily worth a 9.

This is one of the few movies that I've watched repeatedly or when I need an attitude boost. (Others are Harold & Maude and What a Wonderful Life.) I walk away with renewed sense of empowerment, purpose and determination. In addition to that, I enjoyed: 1) the timing--the movie consists of three shorts and I appreciate the order in which the three are presented; 2) sense of humor--the second short is quite charming and I thought well written from a child's point of view--it avoids being an adult pretending to be a child; 3) long dance scenes--there must be several three minute scenes with no editing cuts (the music is so strong that whenever I hear a piece by Faure, if it's not the piece in this one scene it reminds me of it, that I must stop a few seconds because the memory is so alive); 4) the deep exploration of "what is right" --I not only appreciate the presentation of the two sides of every decision presented in all of the shorts, but also that a quick Hollywood solution is resisted; and finally 5) a young Kirk Douglas--which is the old fashioned manly-man. My only wish is that is would be shown on the big screen more often.