Spingtime in the New York City metropolitan area. Two things come to mind. Passover spring break holiday and the circus at the Island Garden Arena in West Hempstead, Long Island. My Grandpa Abe would come and visit us during that time and he tried to share his love and fascination of the Circus to my whole family. In the 1960's Don Amici had a program that aired on television called International Showtime which featured circus acts and My Grandpa watched this show regularly. He just loved to be entertained. The movie Trapeze caught my interest as the opening scene shows the death defying act of the high flyers swinging across and scraping under the big top. A tragic fall occurs and from then on this film has my full attention. This is not a spoiler as our story has many acts to follow. Hobbled aerialist Mike Ribble (Burt Lancaster) who is permanently lame from a bad fall attempting the elusive dangerous triple summer-salt. Enter the young cocky, energetic Tino Orsini played by Tony Curtis. At first the elder Flyer Mike is against doing the stunt again but Tino insists they would make a great pair. After convincing Mike, the two practice for the triple . All is going well until another act falls apart with the shapely and sexy Lola ((Gina Lolabrigida) out of a job. The flirty entrancing, irresistible Lola in her sexy leotards works her magic on the elder Mike as she forces her way into the flying act. To make matters worse Tino has eyes for the sexy Lola who also makes time for the young impressionable flyer. What attracted me to the film was the international flavor as the film I presume was filmed in France or Hollywood made up to look like the city of lights. The excitement of the circus was well displayed in all it's color and pageantry. The element of vertigo was injected in the flying scenes as each catch of a flyer holds your imagination. The wondrous visual effects by Walter Castle. Despite his limp throughout, the 41 year old Lancaster is in excellent shape and did most of the stunts himself being a former circus performer. Fine supporting role by the stout and vocal Thomas Gomez as the Ring Master. This film is entangled in a love triangle coupled with performing a dangerous stunt. There are no safety nets in the game of love .

A stranger came to my door one night to give me mail that had been misdelivered. He was wearing a jacket with a circus logo and when I asked what he did he said he'd been part of a trapeze act. "Catcher or flier?" A flier, he replied, and left without further comment. That isn't what I expected at all. I wanted him to ask how the hell I knew the difference. If he HAD asked I would have said I learned it from this movie.Had he pursued the matter I would have asked him questions like which was more difficult, the "bird's nest" or the simple "pirouette". I was dying to show off but never got the chance. Well, we probably wouldn't have become friends anyway. I hate self-contained people. Most are snooty.I wish some night a geometrician would bring me some misdelivered mail, though, since I can't understand how the word "trapeze" comes from the Latin "trapezium" and "trapezoid" because I learned in high school that a trapezoid was a two dimensional figure with no parallel sides, like a befouled rectangle, whereas a "trapeze", well, it cuts an ordinary rectangle and -- Where was I? Yes, this movie. Thank you.Tony Curtis is an outstanding flier (he's the guy that does all the spinning) who comes to a Paris circus to look up the famous ex-catcher, Burt Lancaster. Curtis wants to learn how to do a triple somersault. Lancaster is a bitter gimp who advises Curtis to go back to Brooklyn, but is finally, reluctantly, won over by Curtis's enthusiasm and youthful talent.The two of them begin working on a circus act at the Cirque d'Hiver in Paris. Then -- cherchez la femme. Gina Lollobrigida dressed in brief spangles and a dazzling smile worms her way into the act. First she seduces Curtis. Then she seduces Lancaster. Conflict ensues. Lancaster winds up with Lollobrigida, Curtis with the triple somersault he craves.I'm not sure who got the better deal. Gina Lollobrigida is stunning in her 1950s way. Her features are so even, so conventionally organized, and so thoroughly covered with make up that her head would look completely comfortable atop a mannequin's body in some high-end boutique. (That doesn't make her ugly.) And the triple somersault is supposed to be so difficult that Lancaster is only one of some three or four people to have ever mastered it. Actually I read somewhere that it's not that tough.This is a better movie than Cecil B. DeMille's "The Greatest Show on Earth." DeMille seemed to assume that no one in his audience had ever seen a circus and everyone longed to see one, so the screen time is filled with parades of Disney characters and other extraneous bombast. "Trapeze" avoids most of that or brushes it off as inconsequential except as it directly affects the plot. In other words the director, Carol Reed ("The Third Man," et al) feels that the audience is more interested in the characters than in seeing half a dozen Indian elephants trundle past us wearing clown hats. Reed gives us credit for having seen a circus and for having the intelligence to buy tickets if we want to see Mickey Mouse strut his stuff on the sawdust. DeMille's movie is full of reaction shots, the audience of nuclear families cheering and clapping orgasmically at the ongoing nonsense. Reed shows us virtually nothing of the audience during the trapeze act except during crises, when we see only the circus cadre staring tensely upwards.In 1956, when this was released, Tony Curtis was still in the heart throb phase of his career, but Reed has subdued him and he turns in a believable and thoughtful performance, the kind he later showed he was capable of in movies like "The Outsider" and "The Boston Strangler." He did some splendid comedies too, and that's nothing to be sneezed at. Lancaster is his reliable self in this serious role. What a physical specimen he was. Lollobrigida is beautiful but, for whatever reason, perhaps the script, she's only bland and beautiful.I'm giving this movie a bonus point for demonstrating what a real circus is like, without the flamboyance and the condescension. For instance, Lancaster begins the film as a rigger. He checks knots and so forth upstairs. Now, is that a glamor occupation or what?

This movie by Carol Reed (director of such great movies as The Third Man, Odd Man Out, The Key, and The Fallen Idol, who finally won the Oscar for Best Director for his musical, "Oliver!"(a musical adaptation of Oliver Twist) is simply superb.Although this shares the circus setting as some others of the time, it's not primarily "about" the circus. It's a profound look at age, comeback, love (whether wanted or not), ambition. It's set in a dark and almost tawdry Paris of the mid-1950s, one that seems still tired and rather poor a dozen years after liberation.The whole setting - and the love triangle - are fabulous yet realistic. This is a great bookend for An American in Paris - two entirely different images of Paris and France at the time.The Burt Lancaster characterization is simply great - understated, powerful, moving - a man looking for a comeback, a last chance. Tony Curtis is also fine (I think Curtis has long been terribly underrated - he's a very good actor, wonderful in all kinds of parts from The Boston Strangler to Boeing, Boeing, from Sweet Smell of Success (with Lancaster again) to Some Like it Hot). Lollobrigida is great - a fine actress, yes unbelievably sexy but also just excellent at making us feel what her (desperate and cunning) character feels.This is a great movie - amazingly set with a circus backdrop. I loved it. It's as good a depiction of post-war western Europe as can be imagined - in music, in light/shadow, in the fatigue you feel throughout. Watch it! You won't be disappointed.

Trapeze is an excellent film. Direction of Carol Reed is superb. I remember as a kid watching the flick on the million dollar movie on WOR-TV and being totally engrossed in the story of a fabulous love triangle between Burt Lancaster, Gina Lollobrigida and Tony Curtis. The film incredibly depicts the dangers of circus acts and what a passionate artist will endure. This little treasure of a film inspires filmmakers and actors today to perfect their craft in the entertainment industry. I learned early that Lancaster was an acrobat which enabled him to create the difficult trapeze act skillfully. But I did not know he was one of the producers until I had the pleasure of interviewing Ms. Gina Lollobrigida at a cover launch of Black Tie International Magazine. Gina candidly told me of her experience on the film and how determined Burt Lancaster wanted the acting scenes perfected while Tony Curtis had a more cavalier attitude and was more interested in the Paris nightlife. Tony would often try to encourage her to have a good time with him off the set. A definite must see for anyone who wants to enjoy a well produced film Author: Cognac Wellerlane