Review of Trapeze

Visually-exciting Big Top melodrama from director Carol Reed, here staging some incredible trapeze sequences for an otherwise mundane soap opera concerning crippled ex-trapeze artist who is lured back into the air by a young upstart, only to squabble with him over a sexy lady who wants her share of the spotlight. Fantastic aerial photography gives the viewer a dizzying sense of vertigo, but what goes on after the show is over is strictly a wheeze. Burt Lancaster (himself an ex-circus performer) spearheaded this project, and he has seldom looked more robustly handsome; his moody character (angry and brooding, with a chip on his shoulder) is, however, a drag on the action. Tony Curtis and Gina Lollobrigida fare much better with somewhat warmer roles--Curtis, in particular, gets a grand opportunity here to shine and show off--though this triangle isn't fresh and the plot of "Trapeze" isn't very intriguing. ** from ****