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Man on a Tightrope

Man on a Tightrope
Man on a Tightrope poster.jpg
Theatrical poster
Directed by Elia Kazan
Screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood
Based on Man on a Tightrope: The Short Novel (1953)
by Neil Paterson
Starring Fredric March
Terry Moore
Gloria Grahame
Paul Hartman
Richard Boone
Cameron Mitchell
Adolphe Menjou
Music by Franz Waxman
Cinematography Georg Krause
Edited by Dorothy Spencer
Distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Release date
  • June 29, 1953 (1953-06-29) (West Germany)
Running time
105 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $1.2 million

Man on a Tightrope is a 1953 American film directed by Elia Kazan, starring Fredric March, Terry Moore and Gloria Grahame. It was entered into the 3rd Berlin International Film Festival. The screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood was based on a 1952 novel of the same title by Neil Paterson. Paterson based his true story, which first appeared as the magazine novelette International Incident, on the escape of the Circus Brumbach from East Germany in 1950. Members of the Circus Brumbach appeared in the film version in both character roles and as extras.

In 1952 Czechoslovakia, circus man Karel Cernik (Fredric March) struggles to keep together his beloved Cirkus Cernik, which belonged to his family before being nationalized by the Communist government. The government allows Cernik to manage the circus, but he grapples with deteriorating conditions in the circus, loss of his workers to the state, and tension with his willful daughter Tereza (Terry Moore) and his young second wife Zama (Gloria Grahame), whom everyone suspects of being unfaithful. Cernik wants to end a budding romance between Tereza and roustabout Joe Vosdek (Cameron Mitchell), who has been with the circus for only a year.

Cernik is interrogated at the headquarters of the S.N.B. state security in Pilzen on why he is not performing the Marxist propaganda acts dictated by the government. Cernik explains that the skits were not funny, and that audiences prefer his usual act. The S.N.B. chief (John Dehner) orders him to resume the required act, and to dismiss a longtime trouper who calls herself "The Duchess." Propaganda minister Fesker (Adolphe Menjou) casually asks him about a radio in his trailer, alerting Cernik to a spy in his midst. Cernik is fined and released, although Fesker believes that he is a threat to the state.


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