The Juggler
United States
1953
84 Min
Black and White
1.37:1
English
Synopsis
Muller was in the old days a star juggler in a vaudeville show in Germany. During the war he was brutalized in a concentration camp and came out a survivor but developed a neurotic condition that occasionally calls for violent outbursts. He still can’t adjust that his wife and children didn’t survive the camps and that he’s no longer in the camp, as he still suffers from the psychological scars of being tortured. When at an Israeli reception camp, after the war, as a displaced person, the ex-juggler for no logical reason except for bad memories cracks an Israeli policeman, Kogan (Richard Benedict), in the face when questioned and flees to Mount Carmel as he’s being chased. There he poses as an American tourist to a group of children, and befriends the apparently homeless youngster Yehoshua (Joseph Walsh). He’s heading to a kibbutz on the Syrian border and Muller decides to join him. Muller teaches the kid how to juggle, and becomes attached to him. When Yehoshua steps on a land mine, Muller rushes him to a hospital. There he meets the widowed beautiful blonde, Ya’el (Milly Vitale), a woman who lost her husband to Arabs and now lives on a commune. She humanizes the wandering brash man, as a romance develops and he fesses up that he’s wanted by the Israeli police. Meanwhile, Israeli Detective Karni (Paul Stewart) is searching the countryside for the juggler to get him some psychological help and not to imprison him. —Ozu’s World of Movie Reviews
Director
Edward Dmytryk
A messenger boy at Paramount in the mid 1920s, Edward Dmytryk became an editor in the 1930s and began directing in 1935. By the mid ‘40s he had such impressive credits as The Devil Commands (1941) with Boris Karloff; the anti-fascist Hitler’s Children (1943); the noirs Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Cornered (1945), starring Dick Powell; and Crossfire (1947), one of the first Hollywood films to confront anti-Semitism. In 1948 Dmytryk became one of the “Hollywood Ten” when he was accused of having ties to the communist party and was sentenced to a year in prison for contempt of Congress. Following his imprisonment, Dmytryk was blacklisted in the U.S., so he directed three films in England, but returned to the States in 1951. Upon his return he went before the House Un-American Activities Committee again, this time as a “friendly” witness, and his name was dropped from the blacklist. He then resumed his American career and directed four films for producer Stanley Kramer, most notably The… read more
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