The Big Circus The Big Circus The Big Circus is a 1959 film starring Victor Mature as a circus owner struggling with financial trouble and a murderous unknown saboteur. It was produced and co-written by Irwin Allen, later known for a series of big-budget disaster films. Hank Whirling (Mature) needs a bank loan to keep his Whirling Circus going. He gets it from a stuffy New York City bank, but only on the condition he take along accountant Randy Sherman (Red Buttons) and publicist Helen Harrison (Rhonda Fleming) to help the circus turn a profit. Hank's top act is the Colino trapeze troupe,
The Big Circus the show on the road. Hank conceives a bold scheme. He will scrap the route he had laid out, do one show in Buffalo, New York, and then slip into New York City three weeks before the Borman Brothers Circus, from whom the Whirling show had broken away, and steal the audience from their rival. But to make his plan work, Whirling needs a major publicity splash. Helen proposes a stunt last performed in the 19th century: walking across the gorge at Niagara Falls. Hank goads Zach into making the wire-walk by calling him a coward. Colino swears that first