The Greatest Show on Earth (film)
Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox film
The Greatest Show on Earth is a 1952 American drama film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille,<ref name="The Greatest Show on Earth">Template:Cite web</ref> shot in Technicolor and released by Paramount Pictures. Set in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the film stars Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde as trapeze artists competing for the center ring and Charlton Heston as the circus manager. James Stewart also stars as a mysterious clown who never removes his makeup, and Dorothy Lamour and Gloria Grahame also play supporting roles.
In addition to the actors, the real Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Circus' 1951 troupe appears in the film with its complement of 1,400 people, hundreds of animals and 60 railroad cars of equipment and tents. The actors learned their circus roles and participated in the acts. The film's storyline is supported by lavish production values, actual circus acts and documentary-style views into the complex logistics behind big-top circuses.
The film won two Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Story, and was nominated for Best Costume Design, Best Director and Best Film Editing. It also won Golden Globe Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Director and Best Motion Picture – Drama.
Plot
[edit]Brad Braden is the no-nonsense general manager of the world's largest railroad circus. The show's board of directors want a short 10-week season rather than risk losing money in a postwar economy. Brad bargains to keep the circus on the road as long as it is profitable, thus keeping the 1,400 performers and staff employed.
Brad tells Holly, his aerialist girlfriend, that she is no longer the center act. World-famous aerialist (and notorious ladies man) "The Great Sebastian" has been hired as the main star to increase attendance. Heartbroken Holly claims Brad has no feelings. Meanwhile, beloved Buttons the Clown, who never appears without his makeup, seems to possess medical knowledge. Holly later reads a newspaper article about a mercy killer, but does not immediately connect the doctor who killed his wife to Buttons.
Sebastian arrives and is coldly greeted by two former lovers: Angel, who performs in the elephant act with the pathologically jealous Klaus, and Phyllis, another circus performer. Sebastian, attracted to Holly, offers her the center ring, knowing Brad will never allow the change. Disappointed, Holly vows her ring will become the main focus.
Buttons' mother attends a performance, warning him the police are on his trail. Meanwhile, the competition between the two aerialists becomes increasingly dangerous. The aerial duel ends when Sebastian removes his safety net, then suffers a serious fall when a stunt goes wrong. Buttons tends to him before the ambulance arrives, impressing the circus' doctor. Holly regains the center ring and star billing, but is devastated by how she attained it. Brad is unable to comfort her.
Brad catches and fires crooked midway concessionaire Harry for cheating customers. Vengeful Harry hangs about the show's periphery sowing disaffection, particularly with jealous Klaus. Sebastian eventually rejoins the show, but, with his right arm is paralyzed, can only do menial work. A guilt-ridden Holly professes she loves Sebastian, believing Brad has no feelings for her. When Angel starts a relationship with Brad, a furious Klaus threatens Angel during a performance with one of the elephants. Brad intervenes and fires Klaus.
An FBI FBI Agent is hunting the mercy killer, accompanies the circus train, believing the doctor might hiding out there. Brad claims not to recognize the doctor's photo. Meanwhile, Buttons tells Brad that Sebastian has regained some feeling in his hand. Brad, having made the connection, casually mentions that the agent is taking fingerprints at the next stop, allowing Buttons to escape or lie low.
Harry and Klaus stop the first train section to rob the pay wagon. Klaus sees the second section coming, and realizes that Angel is aboard that train. He turns his car's headlights down the track to warn the oncoming train. Unable to brake in time, the second train smashes the car, killing Klaus and Harry, then collides with the first train, causing severe destruction and mayhem.
Brad is pinned in the wreckage and severely bleeding. Holly stops Button from slipping away and begs he help Brad. Buttons gives Brad a direct blood transfusion from Sebastian. The FBI agent assists and afterwards reluctantly arrests Buttons.
Holly takes command, mounting a parade and an open-air performance. Brad realizes he loves Holly, and Sebastian proposes to Angel. Holly leads the performers in an improvised "spec" around the three rings – a recovery from the disaster that insures the circus will continue its national tour.
Cast
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- 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
- Lawrence Tierney as Mr. Henderson
- Lyle Bettger as Klaus
- Bob Carson as Ringmaster
- John Ridgely as Assistant Manager
- Frank Wilcox as Circus doctor
- Brad Johnson as unnamed reporter
- John Kellogg as Harry
- Julia Faye as Birdie
- Lillian Albertson as Buttons' mother
- Edmond O'Brien as Narrator (uncredited)
- Charmienne Harker as Charmienne (uncredited)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The film features about 85 Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus acts, including clowns Emmett Kelly and Lou Jacobs, midget Cucciola, bandmaster Merle Evans, foot juggler Miss Loni and aerialist Antoinette Concello.<ref name="variety">The Greatest Show On Earth, a January 2, 1952 review from Variety</ref> John Ringling North plays himself as the owner of the circus.
The film includes several unbilled cameo appearances (mostly in the circus audiences) including Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Lamour's costars in the Road to ... films.<ref name="variety" /> William Boyd appears in his usual guise of Hopalong Cassidy. Danny Thomas, Van Heflin, character actor Oliver Blake and Noel Neill are seen as circus patrons. Leon Ames is seen and heard in the train wreck sequence. A barker, kept anonymous until the film's end, is seen in the closing moments of the film. The voice is finally revealed to be that of Edmond O'Brien.
Production
[edit]
The film was shot in Sarasota, Florida, where locals were paid 75 cents per hour as extras.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
One story concerning the movie says that Lucille Ball was offered Gloria Grahame's role but withdrew when she discovered that she was pregnant with her first child, Lucie Arnaz. However, this account has been disputed because when DeMille was filming with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Ball was preparing I Love Lucy for its launch on CBS.
Art Concello, who was the general manager of Ringling Bros. at the time DeMille was traveling with the show, figured out how to execute the stunt and doubled for Cornel Wilde in the Great Sebastian's fall scene. He had been a headlining aerialist when he was a performer.
Betty Hutton and Wilde had to learn how to fly on the trapeze for their scenes. Wilde may have faced difficulty because of his acrophobia. Hutton became quite proficient with the single bar. Film footage exists showing Hutton rehearsing Template:Convert in the air, talking to DeMille who had ridden to her height on a camera crane.<ref>Template:YouTube</ref> Hutton's stunt double was La Norma Fox, also from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The music for the song "Lovely Luawana Lady" was written by John Ringling North, who appears briefly as himself during the discussion about whether the show would play the road rather than have a short ten-week season. North was a nephew of the five Ringling brothers who founded Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and was its owner at the time.
Release
[edit]The film premiered at the Florida Theater (now the Sarasota Opera House) in Sarasota, Florida.<ref>Lahurd (1990). pg 83</ref>
The film earned $12.8 million<ref name=Finler>Template:Cite book</ref> at the box office in the United States and Canada, making it the highest-grossing film of 1952, as well as Paramount's most successful film to that time.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> It was also the most popular film in Britain in 1952<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and the most popular film of the year in France in 1953.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The film played for 11 weeks at New York's Radio City Music Hall, a record duration that it shared with Random Harvest in 1942 and that would last until at least the 1960s.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Reception and legacy
[edit]Contemporary
[edit]
On the film's release, Bosley Crowther in The New York Times called The Greatest Show on Earth a "lusty triumph of circus showmanship and movie skill" and a "piece of entertainment that will delight movie audiences for years":<ref>De Mille Puts Greatest Show on Earth on Film for All to See, a January 11, 1952 review from The New York Times</ref>
- Sprawling across a mammoth canvas, crammed with the real-life acts and thrills, as well as the vast backstage minutiae, that make the circus the glamorous thing it is and glittering in marvelous Technicolor—truly marvelous color, we repeat—this huge motion picture of the big-top is the dandiest ever put upon the screen.
Time magazine called the film a "mammoth merger of two masters of malarkey for the masses: P. T. Barnum and Cecil B. DeMille" that "fills the screen with pageants and parades [and] finds a spot for 60-odd circus acts," but its plot "does not quite hold all this pageantry together."<ref>The New Pictures (January 14, 1952), a review from Time magazine</ref> Variety wrote that the film "effectively serve[s] the purpose of a framework for all the atmosphere and excitement of the circus on both sides of the big canvas."<ref name="variety"/>
Retrospective
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In 1977, Joe Walders wrote in TV Guide that a film's box-office success does not necessarily translate to continued popularity on television, and cited The Greatest Show on Earth as a primary example: "[It] was not only the top moneymaker of the year, but it also won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Yet it has rarely done well on television."<ref name="Harris-263">Template:Cite book</ref>
Critic Leonard Maltin opined that "like most of DeMille's movies, this may not be art, but it's hugely enjoyable."<ref name="Maltin225">Template:Cite book</ref>
In 2005, The Official Razzie Movie Guide: Enjoying the Best of Hollywood's Worst included The Greatest Show on Earth.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a score of 50% from 44 reviews, with an average rating of 5.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "The Greatest Show on Earth is melodramatic, short on plot, excessively lengthy and bogged down with cliches, but not without a certain innocent charm."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 based on 12 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Accolades
[edit]At the 25th Academy Awards, the movie was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two (for Best Picture and Best Motion Picture Story). It was the last Best Picture winner to win fewer than three Academy Awards until Spotlight (2015).
| Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | Best Motion Picture | Cecil B. DeMille | Template:Won | <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> |
| Best Director | Template:Nom | |||
| Best Motion Picture Story | Fredric M. Frank, Theodore St. John, and Frank Cavett | Template:Won | ||
| Best Costume Design – Color | Edith Head, Dorothy Jeakins, and Miles White | Template:Nom | ||
| Best Film Editing | Anne Bauchens | Template:Nom | ||
| Directors Guild of America Awards | Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures | Cecil B. DeMille | Template:Nom | <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Motion Picture – Drama | Template:Won | <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | |
| Best Director – Motion Picture | Cecil B. DeMille | Template:Won | ||
| Best Cinematography – Color | George Barnes and Peverell Marley | Template:Won | ||
| New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Director | Cecil B. DeMille | Template:Nom | <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> |
Oscar controversy
[edit]Some reviewers consider The Greatest Show on Earth among the weakest selections for the Academy Award for Best Picture, as it defeated highly rated films such as High Noon, The Quiet Man, Ivanhoe, Moulin Rouge, and the unnominated Singin' in the Rain. In 2005, Empire listed it as the third-worst Best Picture winner.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> MSNBC's Erik Lundegaard called Crash the "worst Best Picture winner since the 'dull, bloated' film The Greatest Show on Earth."<ref>Oscar misfire: Crash and burn from a March 2006 MSNBC article</ref> In 2013, the selection of The Greatest Show on Earth rather than High Noon was listed by Time among the 10 most controversial Best Picture races.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Premiere placed the film on its list of the 10 worst Oscar winners.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It holds the second-lowest spot on Rotten Tomatoes' 2011 list of the 90 films to win Best Picture (ahead of only 1929's The Broadway Melody).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Stanley Kramer alleged that the film's Best Picture Oscar was the result of the political climate in Hollywood in 1952.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Senator Joseph McCarthy was pursuing communists at the time, and DeMille was a conservative Republican involved with the National Committee for a Free Europe. Another Best Picture nominee, High Noon, was produced by Carl Foreman, who would soon appear on the Hollywood blacklist, and one of the scriptwriters of Ivanhoe, Marguerite Roberts, was also blacklisted.
However, it is also possible that The Greatest Show On Earth won Best Picture because it was seen as a last chance for DeMille to win a competitive Oscar. A Hollywood legend, DeMille's best work had been done during the silent film era, before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was established. It is possible that the members of the Academy who were veterans of the silent era felt that he, as an elder statesman of Hollywood and one of the founders of the Academy, deserved the honor even if the other nominees for Best Picture were in some ways better than The Greatest Show On Earth.<ref>Every Oscar Best Picture winner - MSN</ref>
Influence
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A television series with the same title was inspired by the film, with Jack Palance in the role of Charlton Heston's character. The program ran on Tuesday evenings for 30 episodes on ABC during the 1963–1964 season.
The self-titled theme song later served as the theme for WGN-TV's long-running The Bozo Show.<ref name=Show>Template:Cite book</ref>
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.<ref>Interview with Steven Spielberg, Mark Kermode, BBC Culture Show, broadcast 2006-11-04</ref> He identifies the film's train crash scene as a major influence, reflected in the science-fiction film Super 8 (2011), which he produced. In an early scene in Spielberg's 2005 remake of War of the Worlds, the train-wreck sequence from The Greatest Show on Earth is briefly shown on a television. The opening scene of Spielberg's 2022 semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans dramatizes his seeing the film on the big screen, in which Sammy Fabelman (the fictional version of young Spielberg) watches it with his parents in a cinema and is mesmerized by the train-wreck sequence.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
See also
[edit]- Circus World (1964) another circus-centered epic
References
[edit]External links
[edit]Template:Barnum Template:Cecil B. DeMille Template:Navboxes Template:Authority control
- Pages with broken file links
- 1952 drama films
- 1952 films
- 1950s American films
- 1950s English-language films
- American drama films
- Best Drama Picture Golden Globe winners
- Best Picture Academy Award winners
- Circus films
- Cultural depictions of P. T. Barnum
- English-language drama films
- Films about euthanasia
- Films directed by Cecil B. DeMille
- Films scored by Victor Young
- Films shot in Florida
- Films shot in Philadelphia
- Films that won the Academy Award for Best Story
- Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe
- Paramount Pictures films
- Rail transport films
- Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus