Juggler, The (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Sep 04, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Edward DmytrykRelease Date(s)
1953 (July 30, 2025)Studio(s)
Stanley Kramer Productions/Columbia Pictures (Imprint Films/Via Vision Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: F
Review
[Editor’s Note: This is a Region-Free Australian Blu-ray import.]
The modern State of Israel was established in 1948. Five years later, producer Stanley Kramer and director Edward Dmytryk made The Juggler, a film that focused on a newly arrived immigrant to the country and the demons that haunted him.
Hans Muller (Kirk Douglas, Paths of Glory) is Jewish. Before World War II, he was a star juggler in a traveling vaudeville show in Germany and throughout Europe. During the war, he was imprisoned in a concentration camp and horribly brutalized. He survived, but his wife and child were murdered and incinerated.
After the war, he was placed in a refugee camp and now has been delivered to a resettlement camp in Israel where doctors offer rehabilitation and acclimation services and the army offers respectable work. Like most other survivors of the Holocaust, he suffers deep psychological scars, which in his case cause him to recoil or lash out uncontrollably whenever he sees a person in uniform. But Muller denies that he needs help and finds an opportunity to run away.
On reaching the nearest town, Muller encounters an Israeli policeman (Richard Benedict, Spy Chasers) he imagines to be a Nazi soldier, beats him unconscious, and believes he’s dead. Now Muller is a hunted fugitive. His flight from justice leads him to Yehoshua (Joey Walsh, Hans Christian Andersen), a homeless boy journeying on foot to a kibbutz near the Syrian border. Muller befriends the boy and, claiming to be an American tourist, asks to accompany him to the kibbutz. Along the way, Muller teaches him to juggle.
Just outside the kibbutz, Yehoshua steps on a land mine and is badly injured. Muller rushes him to the kibbutz’s hospital and meets Ya’el (Milly Vitale, War and Peace), a young woman who has suffered a tragedy of her own. Ya’el has a calming influence on Muller, he develops an affection for her and eventually confesses that he’s wanted by the Israeli police. Meanwhile, sympathetic Israeli detective Karni (Paul Stewart, The Bad and the Beautiful) is combing the countryside for the juggler, not to imprison him but to get him the help he needs.
This seldom shown film has a lot to offer. It’s one of the first to address the horrors of the Holocaust. We hear about them from Muller but never see graphic images. His descriptions and reactions ably convey the atrocities he suffered. The Juggler is also one of the first films shot partly in Israel (interiors were filmed in the U.S.). Director Dmytryk makes good use of the deserts, mountains, and streets of the country, providing authenticity at a time when most movies were shot entirely at Hollywood studios.
The film focuses on one man (Muller) whose experience is that of many Holocaust survivors. The screenplay emphasizes that survivors go through their own hell with torturous memories impossible to exorcise, but never takes on a preachy tone.
Douglas is very convincing as Muller, conveying a rebellious spirit at being consigned to yet another camp and desperate and fearful whenever he spots a uniform, reminding him of cruel camp guards. Though powerfully built, Muller is a fragile individual. Douglas shows an entirely different side of the character when Muller does his act, combining juggling with clownish comedy, for the children of the kibbutz. Performing for an appreciative audience gives him joy and temporarily frees him from unsettling memories. Known largely for action pictures in which he played heroic characters, Douglas welcomed the chance The Juggler offered to expand his range and portray a character living with inner turmoil.
Young Joey Walsh is touching in the pivotal role of Yehoshua, Muller’s Israel-born friend and sidekick who serves as his guide to a country he hasn’t yet come to know. Long-legged and gangly, he even speaks a bit of Hebrew before conveniently telling Muller he also speaks English. Walsh had to learn some juggling for the role and handles it proficiently.
Milly Vitale, attractive and soulful, can be sharp and curt or soft and empathetic as Ya’el. We instantly recognize her intelligence and empathy. Ya’el has also experienced loss and therefore appreciates Muller’s hurt. Vitale has a look that combines seductiveness with caution. Vitale made The Juggler after a series of Italian films.
The exteriors in the Israeli countryside are a highlight and add enormous flavor. However, the film could have skipped some of the romance and instead gone into greater depth about the problems facing the country at the time. Surrounded by hostile Arab nations, Israel had to build itself into a stable and prosperous nation while being constantly vigilant and armed against attacks. The reception scene at the resettlement camp shows how agents welcomed the traumatized Holocaust survivors with calm assurance that here they will be treated with compassion and respect.
The Juggler was shot by director of photography J. Roy Hunt on 35mm black & white film with spherical lenses, finished photochemically, and presented in the Academy format of 1.37:1 (the Blu-ray features an aspect ratio of 1.33:1). Clarity and contrast are very good. Details such as clothing patterns, items in a police station, crowds in the reception area, straw in bales of hay, uniforms, and rock-walled buildings on winding, sun-drenched streets are well delineated. Some stock footage is used at the beginning to show immigrants disembarking from ships into the port city of Haifa.
The soundtrack is English 2.0 mono LPCM. Optional English SDH subtitles are available. Dialogue is clear and distinct. Though many characters are refugees from Europe, none has a thick accent. Since Palestine was under the control of the British for many years, it’s no surprise that many Israelis speak English so well. Ambient crowd noise at the reception center, bodies being pummeled in a fight, and car engines are among the film’s few sound effects. George Anthel’s score has a wistful, almost melancholy feel, particularly in the scenes between Muller and Ya’el. In chase scenes, the music is faster and more robust.
There are no bonus materials on this Region-Free Blu-ray release from Imprint Films.
The Juggler is set during the birth of a country and follows a damaged immigrant as he tries to find his way after undergoing terrible loss and unbearable horrors. The film is ultimately uplifting, as compassion and empathy begin to deal with wounds that will take years to heal.
- Dennis Seuling