The members of a Czech circus escape from behind the Iron Curtain. [ Man on a Tightrope credits: Dir: Elia Kazan/ Fredric March, Terry Moore, Gloria Grahame/ 105 min/ Drama/ Escape from Socialism]
“A suspenseful escape-from-socialism story.”
In the years following the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, people took desperate measures to flee. A few examples from the New York Times Index (1951–52): “..rr engineer [J Konvalinka] races train with one hundred and eleven passengers across W Ger Border … Czech escapes to W Ger after being shot by Czech border police; companion fatally wounded … three more Czechs flee into W Ger in hail of shots … ten flee to W Ger in gun battle with Czech border guards … five youths flee into W Ger in stolen fire truck … L Ollarek and family flee to Austria in amphibious jeep … three held, Denmark, after crossing Eur on rr car axles …”
Man on a Tightrope not only dramatizes the daring and danger of such breakouts, but through the experiences of its characters also explains why people wanted so desperately to leave: because socialist police-state tactics made them live in terror, because socialist meddling in their lives made them poor, and because socialist censorship made free expression impossible.
It is the latter motivation that is paramount for the Czech circus owner at the center of this story. State propaganda officials are interfering in his comedy circus act. They want him to change it in order to give it an anticapitalist flavor. He refuses to do so, because the changes they demand make the act less humorous. So the officials arrest and intimidate him. It’s plain that his circus is going to be subject to ongoing state monitoring and intervention. As a man dedicated to his art, the owner won’t operate on those terms; so instead he leads an heroic escape to the West.
All this makes for a suspenseful escape-from-socialism story. On the downside, the script is at times slightly stale due to excessive use of melodramatic motivations between the characters; but overall it’s still a fair watch.
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