The Greatest Show on Earth

The Greatest Show on Earth

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DVD Reviews of The Greatest Show on Earth

DVD Review: The Greatest Show On Earth - But Not The Best Picture
Summary: 5 Stars

I believe it is because the film was seen as a "last chance" vote for De Mille; particularly ironic given that C.B. received the Thalberg that year as well, and for the same reason: for creating and producing consistently high-quality movies. De Mille's best work was decades behind him when he filmed the 1951 edition of the Ringling Brothers - Barnum & Bailey Circus. The subplots, purple prose and some of the situations have more in common with the silent cinema spectacles for which De Mille is justly famed than they do with the realities of running a three-ring railroad circus plus midway under canvas on the road for an 8-month season.

One subplot almost derailed the production, in fact. From its beginnings, Ringling Brothers was renowned for running a totally honest show. Considering that at one point Ringling had been nicknamed 'the Sunday-School Show' for its total intolerance of grifters, pickpockets and thieves, the subplot involving a dishonest rival circus owner planting a team of con men on the show to run the midway's games of chance was about as welcome to the circus's management as a skunk at a picnic. There were rows between De Mille, Art Concello (Ringling's Director of Performance) and John Ringling North, the show's owner, over this plot until C.B. convinced them he needed the plot line to set up the climactic train wreck at the end of the movie. (Ringling's management didn't like THAT much either, because RB&BB hadn't had a train wreck since 1892!) However, the show extended itself even beyond their usual standard to accommodate the filming (Concello, a famous aerialist in his time, even gaffed The Great Sebastian's fall for De Mille) and despite the tensions engendered by the needs of two different forms of entertainment (there is a legend that C.B. got a royal chewing-out from Concello for moving the lighting around without asking so he could film better, which movement nearly caused a trapeze artist to fall because he couldn't see his catcher), the principal photgraphy was a marvelous chronicle of circus life, in and out of the ring.

The photography, in fact, is what makes The Greatest Show On Earth such an important picture. De Mille succeeded in capturing on film a way of life that even then was starting to die; John Ringling North would strike the Big Top for good midway through the 1956 season and convert his circus into an 'arena show.' Forget the corny subplots involving Brad Braden, Holly, Buttons the Clown and The Great Sebastian. Watch this movie in a documentary frame of mind and you will realize not just how important the circus used to be back before television brought the world into your living room, but the sense of wonder that has been lost from our faster-paced, wider-ranging lives. Glory in the music as well, much of it written for the movie or the 1951 Edition; Victor Young's "The Greatest Show On Earth March" instantly sets the circus scene just as well as Fucik's "Entry of the Gladiators" ever has. Remember that all the acts are doing their thing in real time, not with the help of a green screen and CGI; those are real people really risking their necks out there! (Oh yes: and that really IS Betty Hutton working on the single bar above Ring One. She was doubled for the sequences on the flying trapeze, but she learned and performed her own routines on the single bar. There is even an extant film clip of her being presented with an award from Photoplay Magazine by C.B. De Mille, who had to ride up on a camera crane to give it to her while she was rehearsing under the Big Top!)

We owe the great Cecil B. De Mille many thanks for the documenting of The Greatest Show On Earth at its peak. I personally believe this movie should rank high on the AFI 100 Greatest Movies List. However, as I've said, the best picture of 1952 it isn't, not by a long shot.

Even so, buy the DVD anyway and go to the circus again... and again... and again! "Bring the young'uns! Bring the old folks! Come again!"

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