Variety

Emil Jannings (The Blue Angel) stars in one of his most spectacularly masochistic roles as a small-time trapeze artist who hits the big time in Berlin thanks to a new partner -- his sultry mistress, Lya de Putti. Unknown to Jannings, she's having an affair with the third member of the act (Warwick Ward), and grips have been known to slip -- a possibility made vivid by Karl Freund's vertiginous camera work.