Synopsis Emil Jannings plays Boss Huller, the director ("carnival spieler") of a lewd variety show that lures its audience in with its sex appeal. He is bored with this life, longing to return to the days when he and his wife made their living as part of a trapeze act. Now, they live a ho-hum domestic life together with their young son. After a sensuous younger woman, Bertha (Lya De Putti), joins his troupe, Boss falls in love with her and they have an affair. Desperate to reclaim the glory days of his youth, Boss leaves his wife and child for Bertha, and they run off together to live as trapeze performers. All goes well until the third member of their act, Artinelli (Warwick Ward), also falls for Bertha and forcibly seduces her. At a carnival, Artinelli and Bertha are discovered by a passerby, who finds them spooning behind a bush; but the couple is unaware that they have been discovered. This passerby later doodles a humiliating cartoon on a saloon table that depicts Boss a...
Reviews and reflections on the golden age of cinema.