The Greatest Show on Earth (film)

For other uses, see The greatest show on earth.

The Greatest Show on Earth
File:Greatest.gif Original theatrical poster
Directed by	Cecil B. DeMille
Written by	Fredric M. Frank Theodore St. John Frank Cavett Barré Lyndon
Produced by	Cecil B. DeMille
Starring	Betty Hutton Cornel Wilde Charlton Heston James Stewart Dorothy Lamour Gloria Grahame
Narrated by	Cecil B. DeMille
Cinematography	George Barnes
Edited by	Anne Bauchens
Music by	Victor Young
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	January 10, 1952 (1952-01-10)
Running time	152 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

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. Its storyline is supported by lavish production values, actual circus acts, and documentary, behind-the-rings looks at the massive logistics effort which made big top circuses possible.

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.

In addition to the film actors, the real Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Circus' 1951 troupe appears in the film, with its complement of 1400 people, hundreds of animals, and 60 carloads of equipment and tents. The actors learned their respective circus roles and participated in the acts.

Adjusted for inflation, the film's box office is among the highest-grossing films in the United States and Canada.

A television series, also called The Greatest Show on Earth, was inspired by the film, but with Jack Palance in the role of Charlton Heston's character. The program ran on Tuesday evenings for thirty episodes on ABC during the 1963—1964 season.

DeMille's opening remarks

We bring you the circus --- that Pied Piper whose magic tunes lead children of all ages, from 6 to 60, into a tinseled and spun-candied world of reckless beauty and mounting laughter; whirling thrills; of rhythm, excitement and grace; of daring, enflaring and dance; of high-stepping horses and high-flying stars.

But behind all this, the circus is a massive machine whose very life depends on discipline, motion and speed .... a mechanized army on wheels that rolls over any obstacle in its path .... that meets calamity again and again, but always comes up smiling .... a place where disaster and tragedy stalk the Big Top, haunt the backyards, and ride the circus rails .... where Death is constantly watching for one frayed rope, one weak link, or one trace of fear.

A fierce, primitive fighting force that smashes relentlessly forward against impossible odds: That is the circus. And this is the story of the biggest of the Big Tops .... and of the men and women who fight to make it --- The Greatest Show on Earth!

Plot

Brad Braden is the no-nonsense general manager of what was at the time the world's largest performing troupe. He has a number of problems on his hands.

Administrators plan to cut the season short, rather than risk losing thousands in a shaky post-war economy. Brad bargains to keep the circus on the road as long as it is making a profit, thus keeping 1400 people working. Meanwhile, two of his acts, girlfriend Holly and handsome trapeze star The Great Sebastian, engage in a fierce aerial duel to show which act is the best. Finally, a crooked sideshow promoter and his henchman are running their own schemes, and Brad has to fire them despite their threats.

Another situation — unbeknownst to Brad — involves the mysterious Buttons the Clown, who is never seen without his makeup. During a performance, Buttons converses with a woman member of the audience — who warns him that an unnamed "they" are asking questions about him. She is in actually his mother and they see each other only once a year. Hints about his former life come as he gives first aid to performers and wraps bandages around a trapeze in an expert manner. Holly later finds a newspaper article about a doctor who had "mercy killed" his wife.

The competition between Holly and Sebastian develops into a romantic triangle, with both Sebastian and Brad vying for Holly as the aerialists' acts become increasingly daring and dangerous. Sebastian ignores his former girlfriend Angel, who performs in the elephant act. The duel ends when, in response to a challenge from Holly, Sebastian removes the safety net and suffers serious injuries from a subsequent fall. Buttons tends to him and when a doctor expresses admiration for the way he dealt with the injuries, the clown explains, a little nervously, that he used to be a pharmacist's mate.

Sebastian returns to the circus, but is unable to resume his act due to his debilitates. A guilt-ridden Holly professes her love for her former rival over the cold, unfeeling Brad, so a dejected Brad and Angel pair up.

As they are about to leave one town, a detective intercepts Brad, asking if the circus doctor looked like a photograph a man he is hunting (the photo is of James Stewart without makeup). The detective boards the train to continue his investigation. Brad mentions this to Buttons, who tells him that Sebastian has feeling in his injured hand — a sign that his disability is not permanent. Brad makes the connection between Buttons and the fugitive doctor and comments that the police will be taking fingerprints.

The joy of Sebastian's potential recovery is smashed in a massive collision of the circus' two trains, set up by the crooked promoter and Angel's rejected suitor, Klaus, the elephant trainer. Buttons, who had been about to flee, returns after a plea by Holly and saves the critically injured Brad's life (including a transfusion from Sebastian) despite knowing that the detective is watching, leading to his arrest.

Holly realizes that she is actually in love with Brad. She takes over command, mounts a circus parade through the town nearest the crash and stages an open air show by the crash site (as the tents and lighting were lost in the crash), enabling the circus to avoid bankruptcy.

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
• Brad Johnson as unnamed reporter

The film features about 85 Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus acts, including clowns Emmett Kelly and Lou Jacobs, midget Cucciola, and aerialist Antoinette Concello.

There are a number of unbilled cameo appearances (mostly in the circus audiences) including and Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour's co-stars in the Road to... movies. William Boyd appears in his usual guise of Hopalong Cassidy. However, the plot and cameos play second fiddle to the documentary-like look at the "Big Top" in its last years.

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.

Production

Lucille Ball was offered Gloria Grahame's role in the picture by DeMille, but dropped out when she discovered she was pregnant with her first child, Lucie Arnaz.

The music for the song Lovely Luawana Lady was written by John Ringling North, who appeared briefly as Brad's boss during a telephone conversation. North was the nephew of the five Ringling Brothers.

Reception

Bosley Crowther 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":

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 it a "mammoth merger of two masters of malarkey for the masses: P. T. Barnum and Cecil B. de Mille" as well as a film that "fills the screen with pageants and parades [and] finds a spot for 60-odd circus acts" with a plot that "does not quite hold all this pageantry together."

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."

Critic Leonard Maltin opined that "like most of DeMille's movies, this may not be art, but it's hugely enjoyable".

In 2006, in an article for MSNBC about the 78th Academy Awards selection of Crash as Best Picture, Erik Lundegaard called Crash the "worst Best Picture winner since the 'dull, bloated' film The Greatest Show on Earth"

In "The Official Razzie Movie Guide: Enjoying The Best of Hollywood's Worst", The Greatest Show On Earth is included. The general sentiment in regards to the film seems to be that it was a heinous mistake on part of the Academy to give it the coveted Best Picture award.

Awards

A publicity shot for the film, featuring (L-R) James Stewart, Cornel Wilde, and Charlton Heston.

At the 25th Academy Awards, the movie won Oscars for Best Picture (earning that recognition over films such as High Noon and The Quiet Man and the classic Singin' in the Rain) and for Best Story. It received nominations for Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Costume Design, Color.

Many 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 and the British film magazine Empire rated it #3 on their list of the 10 worst Oscar winners. It has the lowest spot on Rotten Tomatoes' list of the 81 films to win Best Picture.

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 pursuing Communists at the time, and Cecil B. DeMille was one of his supporters; another Best Picture nominee, High Noon, was produced by Carl Foreman, who would soon be on the Hollywood blacklist.

Influence

The self-titled closing theme song later served as the theme for WGN-TV's long running The Bozo Show.

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.

External links

• The Greatest Show on Earth at IMDb
• The Greatest Show on Earth at AllMovie
• The Greatest Show on Earth at the TCM Movie Database
• The Greatest Show on Earth at Rotten Tomatoes