The Greatest Show on Earth
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| The Greatest Show on Earth | |
|---|---|
 original movie poster |
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| Directed by | Cecil B. DeMille |
| Produced by | Cecil B. DeMille |
| Written by | Fredric M. Frank Theodore St. John Frank Cavett Barré Lyndon |
| Starring | Betty Hutton Cornel Wilde Charlton Heston James Stewart Dorothy Lamour |
| Music by | Victor Young |
| Cinematography | George Barnes, ASC |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) |  January 10, 1952 |
| Running time | 152 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Greatest Show on Earth is a 1952 drama film set in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The film was produced, directed, and narrated by Cecil B. DeMille, and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film stars Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde as trapeze artists competing for the center ring, and Charlton Heston as the circus manager running the show. James Stewart also stars as a mysterious clown who never removes his make-up, even between shows.
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[edit] Plot
The three main characters are also involved in a romantic triangle. Other subplots involve performers played by Dorothy Lamour and Gloria Grahame, and a clown who never removes his makeup, played by James Stewart. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby played cameo roles as circus spectators, and Edmond O'Brien has a similar unbilled appearance.
Behind-the-scene melodrama is interwoven with almost documentary-style scenes of realistic circus performances in lavish costumes by Edith Head and others. Towards the end, a spectacular scene involves a massive collision of the two trains that carry the circus from town to town. The real Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's (1951, 81st Edition), with its complement of 1400 people, hundreds of animals, and 60 carloads of equipment and tents appears in the film.
[edit] Awards
The movie won an Academy Award for Best Picture. It also won an Oscar for Best Story.
[edit] Controversies
The film was a huge success at the box office, which might account partly for its Oscar wins, but despite its awards, The Greatest Show on Earth has often been cited by film historians and movie buffs as one of DeMille's lesser motion pictures. Many critics and film fans consider this film among the worst to have ever won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The American film magazine Premiere placed the movie on its list of the 10 worst Oscar winners [1] and the British film magazine Empire rated it #3 on their list of the 10 worst Oscar winners.[2]
Erik Lundegaard of MSNBC said "Greatest Show was a dull, bloated romance".[3]
Other 1952 movies of high critical acclaim include High Noon, The Quiet Man and Singin' in the Rain, which are often offered as alternative winners.
There have been allegations that the film's Best Picture Oscar was due to the political climate in Hollywood in 1952. Senator Joseph McCarthy was outing so-called Communists at the time, and Cecil B. DeMille was one of his supporters; moreover, the most highly praised film of the year, High Noon, was produced by Carl Foreman, who would soon be blacklisted. The Greatest Show on Earth 's win is seen by some as an effort to appease McCarthy.
The Greatest Show on Earth was the first film that director Steven Spielberg saw and he credits it as one of the major inspirations that led him into a film career.[1]
[edit] Main cast
- Betty Hutton as Holly
- Cornel Wilde as The Great Sebastian
- Charlton Heston as Brad Braden
- James Stewart as Buttons the Clown
- Dorothy Lamour as Phyllis
- Gloria Grahame as Angel
- Henry Wilcoxon as FBI Agent Gregory
- Lyle Bettger as Klaus
- Lawrence Tierney as Mr. Henderson
[edit] Production notes
During a song by Dorothy Lamour, the camera pans the audience, among whose members are Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Dorothy Lamour was the frequent co-star of Crosby and Hope in the Road to... movies.
To her great delight, Lucille Ball was offered a part in the picture by DeMille and wanted very much to sign on for the project, but ruled it as too much of a burden between her pregnancy with her second child, Desi Arnaz Jr., and her I Love Lucy commitments.
A barker, kept anonymous until the very end, is heard in the closing moments of the film. The voice is finally revealed to be that of Edmond O'Brien.
James Stewart plays Buttons, the mysterious clown who never takes off his make-up even between shows. There are subtle hints as to his motives and background: he wraps bandages around a trapeze bar in an expert manner; he holds a discreet conversation with a member of the audience who turns out to be his mother; and, when an acrobat has a nasty fall, a doctor expresses admiration for the way Buttons handles his injuries, the clown explaining that he used to be a pharmacist's mate. It turns out that he is in fact on the run from the law, in a way similar to that of Doctor Richard Kimble in the classic TV series The Fugitive, which was made some ten years later.
The antagonist in the movie is predominantly "The Great Sebastian", the high trapeze performer, played by Cornel Wilde.
[edit] References
- ^ Interview with Steven Spielberg, Mark Kermode, BBC Culture Show, broadcast 2006-11-04
| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by An American in Paris |
Academy Award for Best Picture 1952 |
Succeeded by From Here to Eternity |
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