Cheap Carnival Story (DVD) (Kurt Neumann) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Carnival Story

Love is a trap for success
The story of a young German woman who gets entangled in an American Carnival touring Germany after WW2. Men are attracted to her, to help her, to love her, to use her. She has a great courage that enables her to move swiftly from the kitchen to the top of the carnival by becoming a star in a diving act. She is good, very good, and resolute to succeed. But she cannot manage her relations with men properly and leads them to death in the strangest conditions. She can only run away, with another man of course, away from the successive dramas. Love cannot be the tool of success nor of ambition.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

---

glossy melodrama
CARNIVAL STORY is a glossy melodrama that is saved by the always-superb Anne Baxter (ALL ABOUT EVE) and gorgeous camera-work.

Willie (Anne Baxter) is a young pickpocket who happens along to an American carnival that has pulled into Germany for an extended visit. The effusive huckster Joe (Steve Cochran) gets her a job in the kitchen tent, but soon she catches the eye and affections of high-diver Frank (Lyle Bettger), who trains her as his assistant in his act, and later marries her.

Joe, unable to get Willie out of his system, attempts to blackmail her for sexual favors, until her indiscretions lead to inevitable tragedy.

CARNIVAL STORY was filmed entirely on location in Germany, using a mainly-German crew and extras. It was directed by Kurt Neumann, best-known to cult sci-fi fans as the director of the original THE FLY.

Also starring Helene Stanley, George Nader and Jay C. Flippen.

---

Tawdry,trashy tale of circus life
An American carnival,failing to draw the crowds Stateside,decides to tour Germany in a bid to restore its fortunes.
The carnival ramrod,played by Steve Cochran,is robbed by a destitute young German woman,Willi,played most unconvincingly by Anne Baxter.Instead of handing her over to the police he offers her a job with the carnival as a kitchen skivvy and the two begin an affair that runs into complications when the carnival's star attraction ,a high diver ,takes her under his wing and makes her part of the act,and subsequently marries her.
The stage is then set for illicit romance,suspicious deaths and near fatal injuries before the final confrontation on a ferris wheel brings proceedings to a merciful ending

The major problem for me was that never for one second did Baxter persuade me that she was capable of entrancing not just her male colleagues but a freelance photographer(a wooden George Nader)let alone become a star circus performer in her own right,something which takes years of dedication and practice,not a few days instruction.The void which this leaves at the centre of the movie undermines its credibility
Cochran and Bettger,who plays the high diver are fine here,and there is a sturdy cameo from the ever reliable Frank Faylen
Garish colour and flat direction further drag things down.The colour is horrible as well-really harsh and garish.

If you want circus movies track down "Trapeze",or "The Greatest Show On Earth" for ones that get it right.