My friend had a Movie Night last week.

Feature Numero Uno was TRAPEZE (1956).  It stars Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Gina Lollobrigida with Katy Jurado, Thomas Gomez, Johnny Puleo, Gerard Landry, and Sid James.  Carol Reed directed from a final script by James Webb.  This was a big hit in its day, scoring between $10 - 11 million.

Lancaster plays trapeze artist Mike Ribble who, at the top of the picture, injures himself while trying to perform a triple somersault.  Enter Tino Orsini (Curtis), a young guy with amazing potential as flyer.  He tracks down Ribble, the former flyer now working high above the arena securing wires and fixtures.  Orsini, with a little help from Ribble's former girlfriend, Rosa (Jurado), talks Ribble into taking on the young aerialist with the aim of teaching him the triple somersault.  It's a two man act that becomes crowded when ambitious Lola (Lollobrigida) decides she wants to ride their coattails to stardom.

This was a Hecht-Lancaster production shot on location at the Cirque d'Hiver in France.  This Warner Archive edition looked like it was taken from an anamorphic 16mm print which gives the film a guady, seedy look in keeping with the storyline.  Lollobrigida does fine in her first English language role and it's fun watching all three stars at a particular moment of fame and excitement in their careers.  Stunt work is handled very well with clever attempts at blurring the line between the principal cast and their stand ins.  I like this movie a lot more as an adult than I did as a 12 year old when I thought there wasn't enough circus and too much adult drama. 

Some of you may remember Johnny Puleo, a dwarf harmonica player who had his own group.  I thought it was Johnny Puleo and His Harmonicats but the IMDB says it was Harmonica Gang.  Johnny was the sweet little guy who was often mistreated on various TV variety/talk shows by the other harmonica playing guys in the group.  Here he plays Max, a sort of wise man who always knows what's really happening behind the scenes and he'll pop up now and again to make a comment vocally or with his rubbery face.  I wonder why he didn't go on to other films?

Our follow-up was another Gina Lollobrigida vehicle, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1956).  Anthony Quinn, about to win an Oscar for LUST FOR LIFE, plays Quasimodo.  The film wasn't released in the U.S. until late 1957 after Quinn's Oscar win.  This French production was shot in both French and English versions.  The version we saw was the English edition with Quinn's and Lollobrigida's real voices retained. 

This is a fairly expensive looking color production in CinemaScope.  According to the IMDB the film was shot at the actual Notre Dame Cathedral, which would explain the wideshots that were clearly devoid of special effects trickery.  I haven't read the book since I was eight years old so I'll have to take the word of those who say this is more faithful to the book than the previous versions.  But there seems to be more going on in the Lon Chaney silent film, with extra characters and sub-plots, and there are different emphases in the Charles Laughton film which are of interest.  This seems more a romantic triangle with a grim bad guy (Alain Cuny).  Overall, the film lacks pizazz. 

Of the three actors, Quinn's performance is the most realistic.  Not the best, but the most like a real man.  Quasimodo seems just a dimwitted schlub, the character conjuring thoughts of REQUIEM FOR A HUNCHBACK.  Lollobrigida's Esmerelda is strong and sexy.  Jean Tissier made an excellent Louis XI.

I don't know what sort of release this got in the U.S. but it must have gone to television pretty quickly as I remember seeing it on one of our local channels in the very early sixties.

Last Edited By: ryanbrennan Aug 29 10 1:46 AM. Edited 1 times.