Wolfgang Staudte started his career as an actor, going on to make short advertisements before directing features. His credo during the Third Reich was in any event to keep a low profile. Akrobat Schö-ö-ön is one of a handful of the era's productions which warrant the appellation "aesthetic resistance." Its performer-hero (Charlie Rivel) does not speak German and reminds one of Chaplin, Keaton, or perhaps Harpo Marx. Charlie appears immature, somehow not fully constituted; his art is one of control over his seeming lack of control. His presence brings the unexpected, the spontaneous, the disruptive; his lithe and expressive movements pose a sharp contrast to the machine-like precision of the era's idealized armored bodies. Unlike almost every other Nazi hero, he exists on equal terms with female performers who neither threaten nor diminish his person. The acrobat, in short, is a corporeal subversive and an existential innovator-and a far cry from the German soldier male.-E.R.