The Juggler
The Juggler
NR | 11 May 1953 (USA)
The Juggler Trailers

A Holocaust survivor moves to Israel and experiences difficulty adjusting to life.

Reviews
Hellen

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

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Ensofter

Overrated and overhyped

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Micah Lloyd

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

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Sarita Rafferty

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

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Kirpianuscus

one of films who could be defined as special. for theme and for inspired manner to translate it on the screen. for Kirg Douglas performance. for its place in the category of films about Shoah. for the science to present the start of Israel in a poetic-realistic manner. for humor and for the scene of dance and for the shadows of past in the life of the lead character. a film who impress. because it seems be almost a documentary-drama. because it gives more than a List of Schindler . and for the science to use old classic themes and motifs for recreate a kind of beautiful testimony. the force of it - high science to suggest. and a great cast.

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edwagreen

Stanley Kramer always made successful films dealing with social issues and this 1953 film is no exception to that rule.As a Holocaust survivor who lost his wife and children, Hans Muller (Douglas) comes to Israel in 1949.He reminded me somewhat of Rod Steiger in "The Pawnbroker," as he is unable to come to grips with what has occurred in his life and he constantly confuses his current life with what has happened to him in the past. A routine encounter with an Israeli policeman leads to near tragedy and Douglas runs away to a Kibbutz where he finds love and understanding with a woman and a young sabra who he meets along the way.The final scene where Douglas is trapped in a one- room area is similar to that of his captivity in a concentration camp. The torture expressed on his face was reminiscent of what he would exhibit in "Lust for Life" years later.

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Neil Doyle

KIRK DOUGLAS struggles to forget the horrors of a concentration camp in THE JUGGLER, another one of Stanley Kramer's serious socially conscious films of the '50s. Unfortunately, the end result is a film that doesn't really connect with its target audience despite a solid performance by Douglas as the troubled Jew from Israel unable to overcome his fear and bitterness.Unfortunately, Kramer had a habit of assigning George Antheil to score his films. Antheil contributes another inappropriate score heavily accenting any melodramatic moment that points up Kirk's anguish, much the way he did in Kramer's NOT AS A STRANGER. It didn't work there and it doesn't work here, especially during the "escape" scene where the music reaches a frenzied fever pitch of discordant notes.It's hard to fully sympathize with Douglas' tormented character and that is the film's chief handicap. As the man tracking down the fugitive, PAUL STEWART does his usual workmanlike job. Trouble is, there's an almost documentary feel to the story and its pivotal character is never fully fleshed out, remaining somewhat of an enigma despite Douglas' good performance. When romance comes into the story with the entrance of MILLY VITALE, Douglas' character softens a little under her compassionate care.Some vivid glimpses of Israel, circa 1949, and good location photography gives the story an authentic air, but the story values are never more than ordinary and the total effect is bland.Worthwhile mainly for Kirk Douglas fans, it fails to make the impact intended as a serious study of a man haunted by prison camp memories.

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dbdumonteil

One of Kirk Douglas' more intense performances,it is a pity that this movie should remain a buried treasure."Surviving the horror" could be another title for "the juggler" .A Jew ,who has lost all his family and who has known the concentration camps comes back to the promised land in 1949.Life during WW2 camps has often been described,but life AFTER the nightmare is a subject which has rarely been told in movies with a few exceptions ("die Morder sind unter uns ":Susanne's character and "Exodus": the young man played by Sal Mineo).But never as successfully as here.Hans cannot forget.His psyche is shot."I'm the juggler and the juggled" . He tries to find back his dear departed although he knows they were killed.He suffers from claustrophobia and Douglas makes us FEEL his disease (the film owes a great deal to this extraordinary actor),and every time he sees men in uniform ,he thinks of his torturers.Admirable sequences: Douglas in the desert town ,with all these walls which imprison him ,and those men around who are threats .The minefield where the distraught man and his young pal are rescued by their fellow men who form a human chain.In his absorbing memoirs,Douglas wrote that he once helped Dmytryk who was one of the Unfriendly Tens .But when they made "the juggler" ,the director acted as if they had never met.Douglas thought he was ashamed for having been an informer.But he did not judge him at all.What would I have done if I had been in his shoes ? he wrote.Many films might suggest that Dmytryk was suffering from of a strong guilty feeling: "the sniper" with his burned arm,José Ferrer's arm in a sling in "Caine Mutiny" .And in this film ,Douglas "gagging" his arm-mouth ,or covering it to hide his tattooed number.I agree with all the precedent users.A film which must be restored to favor.

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