The Greatest Show On Earth

Although Cecil B. DeMille's film won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Story it not only has dated badly, it wasn’t that good to start off with. Ironically, the dated part, a lavish Technicolor homage to the circus as it was then, a roster of trained animal acts, daredevil high-wire act and prat-falling clowns, a form of entertainment which since has largely died out to be replaced by the much more elevated spectacles of Cirque De Soleil and similar shows, is probably also its best part as it gives us a very good idea of an entertainment phenomenon at the height of its popularity (the real Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey circus is used throughout the film and real staff members as well as John and Henry Ringling, all appear as themselves).

Whilst the actual circus performances provides 60% of the film the rest of the “There’s No Business Like Show Business” story is made up of a “change partners” romance between Charlton Heston’s circus manager and his trapeze artist girlfriend (Betty Hutton) on the one hand and on the other a French Pepe LePew-type male trapeze artist “The Great Sebastian” (Cornel Wilde) who woos her away from him, and an elephant girl (Gloria Grahame) who was his former girlfriend. In an even less convincing third storyline James Stewart plays “Buttons” the clown, a one-time surgeon who is on the lam after having killed his wife (accidentally, of course) and whose idea of going incognito is to never take off his make-up, a completely unnecessary ruse as no-one knows who he is anyway. These two strands come together in the climactic scene when elephant girl’s jealous boss (Lyle Bettger) in retribution for having been fired decides to rob the circus, something which precipitates a model train wreck which at a push might have looked like the real thing but now looks borderline laughable.

To DeMille’s credit the Hollywood inserts in the form of Hutton and Wilde are visually well-integrated into the real circus action (although Sebastian’s tragic fall is clearly not to the ground but to an inflated rubber mat) but the combination of dated and lame leaves this film, particularly with its two-and-a half hour running time, with few potential audiences other than serious nostalgia buffs.

FYI: Bing Crosby and Bob Hope are seen briefly as a couple of peanut-eating audience members

 

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