A lot of viewers and reviewers are pretty rough on this movie. I have to admit that it is outrageous that it won the Best Picture Oscar of 1952 over HIGH NOON and SINGIN' IN THE RAIN.

But there is a LOT of fun in the film. I am NOT a circus fan, but I am a fan of several of the performers featured here. Betty Hutton never surprises you with anything new or different in her movies, but she rarely gives less than her all. Here she is trapeze artist Holly who wants the center ring, but gives it up "for the good of the show." Charlton Heston in one of his first leading roles as Brad Braeden, manager of the show, loves Holly - but loves the circus more. Holly accuses him of having sawdust in his veins.

The show is in danger of a "short season" of big cities in arenas. The big brass don't want to go "under canvas." But with the arrival of a big draw act, The Great Sebastian (Cornel Wilde), the circus will stay out as long as they're in the black. And no it's not playing in blackface as Phyllis (Dorothy Lamour) thinks, it's the black ink.

Gloria Grahame (who won a supporting actress Oscar that same year for THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL)plays Angel. She has an elephant trainer boyfriend Klaus (Lyle Bettger) who is not above using his animal for friendly persuasion. Because you see, Angel also loves Brad. Why oh why are there never enough guys and gals to go around?

Klaus hooks up with a couple of bad guys who have been banned from the midway for running crooked games and stealing the egg money from old helpless farmers. One of them Lawrence Tierney had also previously played John Dillinger. Tierney is Scott Brady's brother and never enjoyed the solid "B" career that Brady did.

James Stewart is Buttons the Clown...the one who NEVER takes off his makeup. Why, you ask? Well, it seems he is the Dr. Kevorkian of 1952 and is on the lam. His mother comes to the circus when it is in town and greets him briefly from the audience.

Producer-narrator Cecil B. DeMille spent about three months with the Ringling Bros-Barnum and Bailey Circus. He also paid them about $250,000 to use their name and acts in his movie. So we get the see the circus as it was then...as it was even disappearing then. The circus acts are a homely bunch even though the extras in the audience are enthusiastic about what they are supposed to be seeing.

Actually the film is very condescending to the members of the audience and they are portrayed as idiots...unless they are "guest stars" such as Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

There is a fall from the trapeze - onto an obvious mattress or other safety device, a lot of songs, some clowns including Emmett Kelly, a LOT of circus acts, and a train wreck!

And in some ways, I suppose this can be taken as a metaphor for the movie business. Obviously the circus performers are one-cell amoebas famous or talented in one area, and so we are presented with some of Hollywood's most famous one-cell amoebas: Charlton Heston, already playing Moses; Betty Hutton, bouncy and bubbly; Dorothy Lamour (in a part that belonged to Lucille Ball who had to give it up when she became pregnant with Desi, Jr), the sarong girl next door; Gloria Grahame, the girl who can't say no; James Stewart, sincerity personified; Cornel Wilde, the lady killer; and C.B. DeMille, showman extraordinaire. They all perform with no depth, because they are not 3-dimensional, they are people without souls. They are words on paper, costumes, and lighting. Each of them is no more alive than the celluloid they are captured on. We see them, we know them, we accept them for what they say they are.

The greatest show on earth is nothing that happens in the circus or in front of a movie camera - it is life. And a film like this only proves it, in spades.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for Groups