BOOTLEG FILES 866: “Carnival Story” (1954 drama starring Anne Baxter and Steve Cochran).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube and other online video sites.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On public domain labels.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A lapsed copyright enabled endless duping.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: The likelihood of a Criterion-style restoration and release is unlikely.
For many years, I avoided the 1954 “Carnival Story,” even though there were endless opportunities to view it. Back in the pre-cable television days, the film was a staple of very-late-night programming on local stations that needed to fill space between commercials during their twilight hours. With the dawn of VHS videos, the film’s public domain status ensured there were too many copies available from rival cheapo labels in bargain basement bins. And with the dawn of online video, “Carnival Story” is all over the Internet – but, then again, too many public domain films are all over the Internet, so why seek out this title?
Finally, I wound up catching it after a Facebook posting from a few weeks back noted the film would be broadcast on TCM in a 6:00 p.m. screening. As luck would have it, my schedule was free for that time block and my longtime indifference to the film abated. I was able to plop myself on my living room couch and see “Carnival Story” without staying up through the wee hours or shelling out five bucks on a crummy video.
To my relief, “Carnival Story” wasn’t a bad film. It wasn’t a good film, either. It’s one of those films that just sort of lays there – a mildly entertaining distraction that doesn’t wear out its welcome, yet it also doesn’t linger once the closing credits run their course.
“Carnival Story” takes place in Munich, Germany, where a struggling American circus arrives in search of an audience. No one who runs the circus can speak German without reading from a translation guide, but the circus owner thinks the postwar Germans will become enchanted by the sawdust and hokum imported from across the Atlantic.
When the circus opens, its barker Joe (played by Steve Cochran) has his wallet stolen by a destitute German woman named Willi (Anne Baxter). Joe catches Willi, but instead of calling for the police he offers her a job as part of the kitchen staff. The star of the circus, the high diver Collini (Lyle Bettger), notices this unusually attractive kitchen worker and offers to train her as his assistant in his act. In almost no time, Willi is diving from a platform atop a 100-foot ladder into an above ground pool.
Collini falls in love with Willi, but she’s in love with Joe. However, Joe enjoys fooling around with Willi but is phobic to the concept of love and marriage. Willi reluctantly accepts Collini’s wedding proposal and they get married, but Willi can’t shake Joe from her carnal appetite. For his part, Joe still considers Willi to be his girl – or as he puts it, “We’re not going to let a litle thing like you being married come between us!”
Not surprisingly, Collini is not please with either Willi or Joe, and this triangle soon spirals into some rather nasty emotional territory – and for the sake of the readers who never saw “Carnival Story,” I won’t go further with the plot summary.
Viewed today, “Carnival Story” has a strange vibe, with a very American melodrama awkwardly set in a German location that is mostly used for some fleeting travelogue shots. This set-up was created because the film’s backers, King Brothers Productions, were making two films with the same story and most of the same supporting cast. While “Carnival Story” was being shot for English-language audiences, director Kurt Neumann was simultaneously shooting the German-language facsimile “Rummelplatz der Liebe” (“Circus of Love”) starring Eva Bartok, Curd Jürgens and Bernhard Wicki. As an inside joke, the German stars appeared as background extras in the American film while Baxter, Cochran and Bettger returned the favor by occupying the extra ranks in the German film.
To its disadvantage, “Carnival Story” comes across as a film created by writers who never interacted with real people – dialogue and character behavior is often borderline ridiculous. A pair of blacklisted writers, Dalton Trumbo and Michael Wilson, made uncredited contributions to the screenplay – and to be cruel, perhaps it was best that they didn’t get public recognition for this work. But, then again, how often do you watch films where the characters say lines such as “We’re both bad, baby – that’s why we’re good for each other!” and “If you were starving to death, howling for food, I wouldn’t throw you a rotten bone”?
To its credit, the film’s cast tries their hardest to create cinematic alchemy by turning leaden material into gold. It doesn’t work, but not for lack of trying. Baxter taps into some of her “All About Eve”-level conniving early in the flick – and while she never quite masters the German accent, she looks great in a swimsuit and gets to run the melodramatic gamut. Cochran is his usual sexy villain and Bettger, who often played a villain, is a credible good guy. Another big screen good guy, George Nader, turns up later in the film as a photographer, but the real fun is Adi Berber, a Tor Johnson clone whose small role as the mute and simpleminded strongman that adores Baxter’s character creates a wonderfully silly climax involving a chase on a ferris wheel.
“Carnival Story” was shot in Agfacolor but was printed in and marketed as a Technicolor feature. Some sources claim the film was planned as a 3D feature, but it was never presented in that format.
RKO acquired the film for theatrical release and placed it in New York City’s prestigious Criterion Theatre for its premiere. King Brothers Productions worked with RKO in the release of several of its films – most notably the 1956 Mexican-based feature “The Brave One,” which won Dalton Trumbo an Oscar for Best Story under his pseudonym Robert Rich – but the producers later sued the studio for mishandling the release of their titles. Today, King Brothers Productions is best known for a pair of giant monster classics: the American release of “Rodan” and the British-based “Gorgo.”
I will point out that the aforementioned TCM broadcast of “Carnival Story” used a slightly faded print that was clearly from a public domain source. I suspect that this film will never get a Criterion-worthy treatment of 4K restoration from original negatives, so anyone who is curious to experience this old romp will have to tolerate the not-so-pristine prints that are floating about in abundance.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
Listen to Phil Hall’s award-winning podcast “The Online Movie Show with Phil Hall” on SoundCloud and his radio show “Nutmeg Chatter” on WAPJ-FM in Torrington, Connecticut, with a new episode every Sunday. His new book “100 Years of Wall Street Crooks” is now in release through Bicep Books.