User Reviews

I certainly enjoyed this film, but it made me very uneasy. Herbert Lom, who is fourth-billed, his name appearing on the second panel of the credits even though he has the biggest part, is a phenomenal screen presence, menacing and charming. All the Anglo characters despise him without any reason. The Anglo male leads, Lyons and Farrar, are jealous, rude and finally homicidal. And you get the impression that the film-makers think that all their maliciousness is justified merely because Lom is foreign and intelligent.

Made in 1943, this film could have easily been made in Germany at the same time with Lom posing as a Jew. I suppose he's supposed to resemble a German, but Lom (who is 5 foot 9 inches) is constantly referred to as "little" and "dirty". Great suspense scenes, well worth seeing, but...

To me, what most people find disturbing is the Dr. and his insidious ways at attaining his own personal goals; I agree, the man is a droning awful cold and calculated machine that panders solely to his decadent desires but that's not what I found most disturbing in this here yarn..

Oh no, did anyone heed the fact that the audience to these spectacles go to the circus for the sake of perhaps seeing someone especially a nice lady plummet to her death whilst performing for them in a tightrope act?

That is what made them famous, no, not the safe dumb clowns, or whatever else the circus has in store, but the simple fact that maybe the patrons that frequent this weird establishment offer up the possibility of a human being plummeting to their death as the best, most appealing, most popular, most exciting thing in their act, what is that about?

I mean who cares if she falls or not, if there is a net, we shant have to worry, no, for that is why we call it a safety net, it does not add nor take away from what we really came to see, the talent behind the Trapeze artists... Not sitting there with bated breath biting into our nails in hopes something out of the ordinary transpires before our eyes like.......

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! plop....

Good show, good show indeed sir!

A travelling circus struggles to make ends meet. A young and handsome newcomer seems like a valuable addition to the team, since he is capable of hypnotizing pretty much everyone and everything. Soon a spectacular collaboration develops, whereby the young stranger convinces a female trapeze artist to cast away her doubts and attempt ever more daring feats. As the artist soars, so does the income - but where will it all end ?

A suspenseful and entertaining movie, set against the colourful background of a travelling circus. The movie lacks that "je ne sais quoi" that would lift it up into classics heaven, but it's certainly decent enough. It also contains a number of interesting contemporary circus acts.

I was surprised to see characters smoking a cigarette in a circus (think bales of straw, think unfamiliar environment, think young children, think caged animals), but then, it seems somewhat superfluous to worry about the Health & Safety regulations of the 1940's.

In the beginning of the movie, there's a scene involving an escaped lion which shows exactly why it is a bad idea - in both senses of the word - to grab an unsuspecting wild animal, drag it to another continent and force it into a life of hated servitude.

Last night three Warner Brother - Teddington Studios (U.K.) films were shown for the first time in decades and the first time on American television. All three were good productions, but this one is worth talking about first - it was the first big role that that fine character actor Herbert Lom ever got in British film.

Born in Czechoslavakia, Lom came to England in the 1930s, and began acting in bit parts. But he has a face which is photogenically handsome but sinister, and soon began getting better and better roles - not all of them villains (his ruthless gang boss in NIGHT IN THE CITY has a legitimate, deadly gripe against Richard Widmark). He would also do well in comedies, playing with his villainy in THE LADYKILLERS and as "Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus" in the "Pink Panther" films.

Here, he is Torg, later Mr. Torg, and later (for publicity) renamed Dr. Stephen Torg. He is a tramp who stumbles into a dying circus run by Ben Lyon (Phil Danton) and his brother (and trapeze star) David Farrar (Tom Danton). Tom's wife Mary (Ann Crawford) is his trapeze partner. The circus is collapsing for want of customers, and the players not paid. But Phil explains things to them, and they agree to keep going on for awhile. But the lion escapes from it's cage, and after the lion tamer collapses nobody knows what to do. Except Torg. He has a powerful command in relaxing the lion slowly, and getting it into the cage again. Everyone is impressed, particularly Phil and his publicity man Jim (William - here Bill - Hartnett, of later "Dr. Who" fame). They allow Torg to work for the circus. An idea is suggested concerning one of Mary's delicate high wire acts - what if Torg hypnotized her so she did not need her parasol for balance. Tom, of course, is against it, but Mary is willing to do it. And it works.

Soon, due to Jim's publicity, the crowds start showing up. This is fine, but the circus people (except for Mary) don't like Torg. He is arrogant, and won't do his share of the work moving objects about when setting up and tearing down the campsites. He also does not care for any of their feelings. When the ringmaster Willy (Frederick Burtwell, in a nice comic performance) starts telling him off, Torg quietly informs him that with his usefulness to the circus he is irreplaceable, whereas ringmasters are easily replaceable.

Tom is definitely angry with Torg - he sees Mary slowly falling more and more under Torg's influence. She even misses helping take down the camp at one point. Torg, who has forced Phil to make him a partner, takes her for a drive in his new MG. Here Lom has his best moment in the film - he's allowed to tell Mary what is behind his flawed character. He had a wretched youth in a children's home, and was bullied because he was small. It's actually quite touching as Lom demonstrates Torg wasn't made like he was by nature, but by the human race itself. It explains how he gained his arrogance by his powers of hypnosis, and how he really was potentially a better person than he became.

Mary at this point rejects Torg's offer to marry her. She still loves Tom. Shortly after Tom knocks down Torg after an argument. And soon after that - there is an accident in an aerial act leaving Tom badly injured. It seems Mary claims as her hold fails she is too tired. Later she can't remember this. And Torg is smiling.

Ever since George Du Maurier created "Svengali" in Trilby, hypnosis was seen as a potentially sinister force. John Barrymore played Svengali in the film of that name in the 1930s, and there were other similar films (both dramas and comedies) since then. This film treats the subject with some dignity, even having a psychiatrist examine Mary at one point. The entire cast is quite good (even Lyon's American accent is tolerable after awhile), but it's Lom's sinister Torg that holds it together best, and which opened his future career so well.

Allegedly based on the 1933 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Alexander Woollcott, the movie bears little resemblance to this source at all and is actually based on the 1894 novel, Trilby, by George Du Maurier - a property that Warner Brothers also owned. The most notable film version was Svengali (1931) in which John Barrymore played the title character.

On this occasion, the role is played - and played well - by sanpaku-eyed Herbert Lom, while Anne Crawford makes a most effective Trilby and David Farrar a more powerful and charismatic version of Little Billee.

The setting has been cleverly changed from opera to a circus, enabling director Harlow to incorporate a number of genuine acts, including a thrilling sequence in which a clown performs a number of breathtaking high wire stunts. Nominal star, Ben Lyon, doesn't get too much in the way.

Production values impress and the noirish photography by Otto Heller is a stand-out, particularly in the Herbert Lom sequences.