"The story of a crippled man who achieves a measure of freedom from his affliction when he "flies" is an easy fit for Lancaster, a graduate of the circus culture himself. His "walk-and-talk" rapport with Curtis anticipates their superb master-slave routines in the acerbic Sweet Smell of Success. The tight, elliptical narrative with its sense of live theatre also prefigures Sweet Smell of Success, an influence derived in part from the fact that both films had British directors. While Carol Reed is better known for his grim post-war morality tale The Third Man, the over-lapping actions and character cameos of Trapeze conceal a lot of sophisticated scene direction. The De Luxe color cinematography of the aerialists is always convincing and dramatic, and the seedy claustrophobia of life with the animals in the world below has the weird and gritty authenticity of a colorized period postcard."