Special Effects Master Irwin Allen makes this movie look good with the camera and Technicolor available in 1959. It is entertaining, but no masterpiece to be sure.
For one thing, Victor Mature is kind of wasted here. It is not Mature's fault but has to do with the script as he only gets the bare minimum of chances to act as he has very little dialog to work with. Rhonda Fleming and the women in the cast are OK but in spite of a couple of romantic angles put into the script, do not really shine and that has to do some with the script too.
Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Red Buttons are clearly support but I think an opportunity was missed by central casting. It is obvious that Lorre is not feeling well by the way he acts in the film. It might have been more effective to have cast Lorre in a different role as he does not have the energy to make a good clown. Buttons actually doubles for him in a clown sequence. If Buttons had been cast as the clown, the film could have come out better.
It is still a decent film in spite of this and Price is really just the RingMaster of the Circus it seems. With the recent successful Walenda tight wire walk across Niagra Falls, this one seems a bit obvious as you can tell a back projection screen is employed by Allen. Still it does mention someone had done it 100 years earlier which makes the recent Wallenda walk more significant.
For one thing, Victor Mature is kind of wasted here. It is not Mature's fault but has to do with the script as he only gets the bare minimum of chances to act as he has very little dialog to work with. Rhonda Fleming and the women in the cast are OK but in spite of a couple of romantic angles put into the script, do not really shine and that has to do some with the script too.
Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Red Buttons are clearly support but I think an opportunity was missed by central casting. It is obvious that Lorre is not feeling well by the way he acts in the film. It might have been more effective to have cast Lorre in a different role as he does not have the energy to make a good clown. Buttons actually doubles for him in a clown sequence. If Buttons had been cast as the clown, the film could have come out better.
It is still a decent film in spite of this and Price is really just the RingMaster of the Circus it seems. With the recent successful Walenda tight wire walk across Niagra Falls, this one seems a bit obvious as you can tell a back projection screen is employed by Allen. Still it does mention someone had done it 100 years earlier which makes the recent Wallenda walk more significant.