Man on a Tightrope Man on a Tightrope Man on a Tightrope is a 1953 American film directed by Elia Kazan, starring Fredric March, Terry Moore and Gloria Grahame. It was entered into the 3rd Berlin International Film Festival. The screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood was based on a 1952 novel of the same title by Neil Paterson. Paterson based his true story, which first appeared as the magazine novelette "International Incident", on the escape of the Circus Brumbach from East Germany in 1950. Members of the Circus Brumbach appeared in the film version in both character roles and as extras. In 1952 Czechoslovakia,
Letter to a Phoenix said that he was "fascinated" by the story, and that it was the direct inspiration for the 1975 story "The Peddler's Apprentice" which he co-wrote with his then-wife, Joan D. Vinge. Letter to a Phoenix "Letter to a Phoenix" is a science fiction short story by American writer Fredric Brown, about immortality. It was first published in "Astounding Science Fiction" in August 1949. A 180,000-year-old man writes a letter to humanity as a whole, explaining the lessons he has learned while observing the rise and fall of multiple civilizations. Literary scholar Jack Seabrook has described it as "(t)hought-provoking rather than