Carnival Story (1954)

After watching the tough Sports Drama Blue Chips on Netflix UK,I took at the films page on BBC iPlayer. Checking what was about to be removed,I spotted an interesting-looking circus tale,which led to me putting up the big top.The plot:Caught pick-pocketing at a carnival,Willie is offered the chance to go back stage by Joe Hammond. Caught up in a whirlwind romance,Willie accepts an offer from performer Frank Colloni to be his assistant. Seeing Colloni and Willie get close together,Hammond starts making plans to bring the curtain down on their romance.View on the film:Originally planned for 3D,co-writer/(with Hans Jacoby/Marcy Klauber/Charles Williams/Michael Wilson and Dalton Trumbo) director Kurt Neumann & cinematographer Ernest Haller retain a 3D sense of scale,with the somersaults and other carnival acts diving out of the screen.Shot at the same time as a German version,Neumann sets the stage alight with Melodrama flourishes,as the camera swoons to the seedy lions prowling the backstage. Taking six writers to put the show on,the screenplay never quite finds its footing,with Willie's romances lacking any moments of intimacy or warmth to make them a winning double act. Throwing knives at Willie,the writers display a deliciously merciless side to making Willie's Melodrama as harsh as possible,with everyone that Willie holds dear being thrown to the demons that rule her life. Juggling with Steve Cochran's devilish cad Hammond, Anne Baxter gives a fabulous performance as Willie,thanks to Baxter balancing the show -woman glamour with a taut fragility backstage,as Willie's life becomes the carnival story.

Made a couple of years after Cecil B. Demille's circus tribute movie almost epic "Greatest Show on Earth," this movie is a wayward daughter of that film. The great circus acts are pretty well limited to a single high diving act. It is set in Germany because a carnival can't make any money any more in the United States. The television series, "Flash Gordon" was also made in Germany in 1954, so I guess, producers heard they could get a lot for their production buck in Germany at that time.The movie works better than it should. Being filmed in Germany, it allows Ann Baxter to show a bit more sexuality than she could have gotten away with in Hollywood under the moral code at that time. She shows a lot of leg and showers while taking a shower.She really turns in a strong performance. The script is cliché ridden and the lines are as deep as a pulp detective novel, but she managers to really make us believe her when she strips to her underwear and tells a man that she's not afraid of anything. This is about as far from "All About Eve" or "Magnificent Ambersons" material, but she carries it off somehow, and keeps your eyes glued to the screen.Altogether, the script is mediocre melodrama, but good direction and good acting keep it on track and make it fun. While it never reaches the grandeur of "Greatest Show on Earth" it doesn't have the dull stretches that GSOE has either.

A waste of time. The characters are all so unlikeable you really don't care if the writer kills them all off. Which is what he should have done. I was surprised that so many usually very talented actors were just plain awful. It was like they were just reading a script. No feeling... Just walking through it. Ms. Baxter, at times had an accent and at times did not have an accent. She was doing so much overacting as were the others that at times it had a comic effect. I am sure that this is not what the writer of this script had in mine. Don't bother or waste your time watching. I sat through the whole thing thinking it would get better...it didn't. Then the end was anti-climatic and really answered no questions at all. Read a good book instead

In many ways this is a strange film with Anne Baxter being the black widow of sorts. The screen seems to come alive only when she is on screen with Cochran.The plot is very simplistic and the characters not well developed and are even contradictory.However, any film with them in it is worthy of viewing. Maybe a better script would have enhanced this film.