Anna Neagle, Leslie Banks and Tullio Carminati are the Three Maxims, a first-rate trapeze act in a third-rate circus. Fortune, however, beckons with a contract for a Parisian theater. At this point Banks asks Carminati to propose to Anna for him; when she turns him down, he turns surly, thinking the two are in love; he drops Carminati into the net during rehearsal, and they work without a net when there's an audience.
It's certainly a pleasure to see Miss Neagle in white tights, but there's nothing to do with the circus in her performance. She is miscast, but who can blame her producer and director, Herbert Wilcox, whom she would marry seven years later? It's a love letter to her, and who can blame the smitten fellow? Her co-leads are fine and the production certainly puts a lot of money on the screen with a crowd of extras in the theater scenes.
Whoever the uncredited acrobats were that filled in for the leads on the trapeze, they did a good job, as did Freddie Young, the great cinematographer, in the long shots -- alas, the print I looked at was not sharp to determine if the close-ups were of equal quality, but I'm sure they were.
It's certainly a pleasure to see Miss Neagle in white tights, but there's nothing to do with the circus in her performance. She is miscast, but who can blame her producer and director, Herbert Wilcox, whom she would marry seven years later? It's a love letter to her, and who can blame the smitten fellow? Her co-leads are fine and the production certainly puts a lot of money on the screen with a crowd of extras in the theater scenes.
Whoever the uncredited acrobats were that filled in for the leads on the trapeze, they did a good job, as did Freddie Young, the great cinematographer, in the long shots -- alas, the print I looked at was not sharp to determine if the close-ups were of equal quality, but I'm sure they were.
