Half Way to Heaven

A child is born. We see underwater swimmers representing this. He is young, in a jungle setting, with two fanciful "instincts" guiding him as swooping bird-like acrobats initially menace, then delight. As an adolescent, he enters a desert, where a man spins a large cube of metal tubing. He leaves his instinct-guides behind, and enters a garden where two statues dance in a pond. As he watches their sensual acrobatics of love, he becomes a man. He is offered wealth (represented by a golden hat) by a devil figure. In a richly decorated room, a scruffy troupe of a dozen acrobats and a little girl reawaken the old man's youthful nature and love.

Love triangle in an acrobatic trapeze act results in a missed catch and a death, but was it on purpose?

Hélène and Aldo Giovanni are a circus trapeze double act and a couple. Aldo is temporarily replaced by former-partner Alexandre when the former is injured. The two get into a fight and the following day Alexandre is discovered dead. Hélène suspects her husband is responsible for the murder.

Acrobat Eddie Marsh is in the army now. His first act is to become friendly with Kathryn Jones, the colonel's pretty daughter. Their romance hits a few snags, including disapproval from her father. Eddie's also plagued by fear of having an accident during his family's trapeze act in the army variety show, which also features a gallery of MGM stars.

Circus owner Matt Masters is beset by disasters as he attempts a European tour of his circus. At the same time, he is caught in an emotional bind between his adopted daughter and her mother.

A French PR man and his girlfriend steal a lottery ticket from twin trapeze artists, prompting murder.

Thirteen women who were schoolmates ask a swami to cast their horoscopes. The news they receive is not good for any of them.

In Las Vegas, Lucky and two of her girlfriends, Carol and Lisa, plan to steal half a million dollars from the sadistic manager of the Circus Circus Casino. A shadowy man is their contact and organizer. Each of the women could be a weak link in a scheme that has to be flawless: Lucky's boyfriend is a security officer at the casino, Lisa is a trapeze artist who's now plagued with vertigo, and Carol is in debt to a nasty thug - plus, as a Black woman, she's subject to additional harassment. Can the gals pull off the heist, or is the plan, with it's mysterious organizer, too complicated to succeed?

A circus owner tries to keep his financially troubled circus on the road, despite the efforts of a murderous saboteur who has decided that the show must not go on.

A European circus family is torn apart by greed and jealousy.

The circus provides the backdrop for this melodrama that chronicles the lives of four children raised within the big top. Film historian and collector William K. Everson stated that the only surviving print was lost by actress Mary Duncan who had borrowed it from Fox Studios. In the December 1974 issue of "Films in Review," he explained that Mary Duncan, one of the film's stars, wanted it to show to a group of friends in Florida. The star was aware that it was a dangerous nitrate print and assumed that Fox had others. She threw the only copy in the ocean, a mistake characterized by Everson as "a monumental blunder to rank with Balaclava, Sarajevo, and the Fall of Babylon as one of history's blackest moments."