If you ask people to list the ten least deserving Best
Picture winners chances are pretty good that The Greatest Show on Earth will be
among them. Sometimes a film suffers in
comparison to another nominee from the same year (i.e. Ordinary People vs.
Raging Bull in 1981), or sometimes the film just isn’t Best Picture caliber
(i.e. A Beautiful Mind in 2002). In the
case of The Greatest Show on Earth, both of these apply. Two of the other films nominated that year were
High Noon (1952) and The Quiet Man (1952).
Not even receiving a Best Picture nomination was Singin’ in the Rain
(1952). And the overall tone of The
Greatest Show on Earth doesn’t scream “Best Picture!” The mistake that some people make, though, is
equating “shouldn’t have won” with “bad movie.”
In the other examples I gave both Ordinary People and A Beautiful Mind are
films worth seeing; they just weren’t “Best Pictures”. The Greatest Show on Earth is the same. It’s “big with a capital B” entertainment
from the undisputed king of big entertainment in the early days of
It’s interesting to note that the contemporary reviews for
it were almost universally positive. And
in addition to critics liking it back then it was also a big box office
success. It made Charlton Heston a star
overnight. It’s in the much more cynical
era today that the overlapping love entanglements, the spectacle, and the sheer
earnestness of it alienate some viewers.
I went into this with very low expectations and came out surprised that
not only did I not hate it, I was entertained by it. I agree that it’s not Best Picture worthy,
but it is far from being a bad movie.
Producer/director DeMille wanted to set a movie amongst the
spectacle and pageantry of the circus.
Who better at the time to approach than Ringling Brothers – the kings of
the business and the owners of the phrase “the greatest show on Earth”? Filming was done at Ringling Brothers’
properties and several of the show’s stars have small roles in this film, most
famously clown Emmett Kelly.
DeMille made his stars really learn to perform the stunts
for their characters. Trapeze artists
Betty Hutton (as Holly) and Cornel Wilde (as The Great Sebastian) really
learned their trapeze tricks. Wilde even
tore some ligaments catching Hutton in one of the scenes and had to take
several days to heal enough to continue filming. Gloria Grahame (as Angel) really did perform
with an elephant, including having it bring its foot down on her head while she
lay on the ground. Having to do this is
one of the reasons first choice Lucille Ball turned down the Angel role: she
had learned she was pregnant.
Heston was not the obvious first choice for circus manager
Brad Braden. He had only acted in a couple
of films before. In fact, he liked to
relate an anecdote where someone said that they liked how well that circus
manager performed onscreen with the real actors. He said it was the best review he ever
received.
Braden has to contend with a number of issues. The circus is losing money and the investors
want to shut it down. Braden gets an
agreement that they can keep it open as long as it makes money. To do that he hires big star The Great
Sebastian, which means pushing his girlfriend Holly out of the starring role on
the trapeze. This alienates Holly, and
combined with Sebastian’s killer way with the ladies, he’s soon romancing her. The two of them keep escalating the
difficulty of their stunts, too, in an effort to one up each other. You know that’s not going to end well.
Since Holly is no longer with Brad, Angel steps in. This angers a man who likes her. Brad also has to contend with a thief on the
midway. One man he seemingly doesn’t
have to worry about is the clown Buttons.
He does his job and seems friendly with everyone. Wait a minute, why is Buttons receiving an
ominous message from a woman in the audience?
And why doesn’t he ever take his makeup off, even when he’s not
performing?
Pretty much everyone will recognize the voice of Jimmy
Stewart behind the greasepaint, but back when the film was made the producers
didn’t think that would happen. They
made Stewart take lower pay since they thought no one would know he was in the
movie. He’d always wanted to play a
clown, though, so he did the film anyway.
There are a number of fun cameos in the film, especially
when Dorothy Lamour is performing. Watch
for her “Road” partners Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in the audience during her
singing.
Everything comes to a head when the thief and Angel’s spurned
paramour decide to sabotage the circus to get back at Brad. There is a spectacular train crash that
impresses even today. It was done with
exquisitely built models that even crumpled the way the real train cars would
have.
It looks like this is the end for the circus. How can they possibly recover from this? With “can do” attitude, it turns out, which
I’m sure makes jaded people gag. In
addition to Best Picture it also won Best Writing – just another sign of how
times have changed when it comes to being considered what is and is not a good
story.
Some people claim, and perhaps rightly so, that this only
won Best Picture over High Noon because of politics regarding the McCarthy
hearings and how High Noon’s producers were under investigation, while DeMille
was a McCarthy supporter. If so, I am
shocked, shocked! to find politics going on in the picking of Oscar winners.
Some also feel that this was a “career Oscar” for DeMille
who had been such a big part of building the Hollywood
legend. There have been many examples of
this both before and since. What goes
around comes around, though. DeMille
probably should have won Best Picture in 1957 for The Ten Commandments (1956),
but he lost out to Around the World in 80 Days (1956) – another of the winners
that usually makes the “ten least deserving” lists.
I think that if you approach The Greatest Show on Earth not
as a “Best Picture winner”, but as just another movie you may find yourself
being entertained by the spectacle of it all.
However, if you can’t get past the idea that Best Picture winners should
live up to certain standards then you are better off skipping this one. For everyone else, if this sounds interesting
then I recommend you give it a try.
Chip’s Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Three stars is at least one star too generous for this overblown, bloated circus peanut. If only the Academy had waited four years, they could've given DeMille an Oscar for The Ten Commandments, removing this one and Around the World in 80 Days from the parade of shameful Best Picture winners--something you noted here.
ReplyDeleteAh well. It doesn't help that I kinda hate circuses.
Well, obviously I disagree or I wouldn't have recommended it. When you left a comment on my parent post saying you were looking forward to these posts on Gloria Grahame movies I responded that there was one you weren't going to like, but that you could look forward to the others. :-)
Delete"It doesn't help that I kinda hate circuses."
Were you scared by a clown when you were little?
No. I wouldn't say I'm scared of clowns, but they do make me nervous. The reason is that clowns are more or less "accepted" crazy people. You never know what one will do. For those who love clowns, that's their charm. For me, it makes me suspicious of them. That bucket a clown is holding and going to throw on the crowd? Could be water. Could be confetti. Could be battery acid. You just never know, because the guy behind the makeup is a licensed crazy person.
DeleteAlso, circuses smell bad and are frequently cruel to animals. Sitting in a hot, sweaty tent with the stink of animal feces for a couple of hours watching someone perform tricks is my definition of a ripe slice of hell.
Interesting. I've never thought of clowns that way, but I completely get what you mean about being nervous around certain people who you know have "something wrong upstairs" and you're never quite sure if they're going to be dangerous.
DeleteI was actually mostly joking about the clown thing. There's been a whole subgenre of jokes about hating clowns that has grown over the last 10-15 years that I've never gotten. I first noticed it sometime after Stephen King's It was turned into a TV miniseries, then a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode used the joke, then the gates opened and movies like the zombie comedy Zombieland are even throwing in jokes about zombie clowns. It just felt really random to me, like if all of a sudden there were all kinds of jokes about hating stand up comics.
"Sitting in a hot, sweaty tent with the stink of animal feces for a couple of hours watching someone perform tricks is my definition of a ripe slice of hell."
Well, I didn't grow up on a farm, but I did grow up in the country. The smell of cow shit is one I am familiar with. However, I wouldn't want to sit in a hot sweaty tent with the stink of smog and car exhaust for a couple of hours, so I can also appreciate where you are coming from.
Great review!
ReplyDeleteWe're linking to your article for Academy Monday at SeminalCinemaOutfit.com
Keep up the good work!
This is a nutty winner for Best Picture, especially in a year with so many films of higher quality, but I agree on your take that watching it as an entertainment rather than an undeserving winner is the way to go.
ReplyDeleteIt also is helpful to be a fan of the director and his particular style. I don't really like circuses and I still enjoyed every garish, gaudy De Milleian minute of the film. He had his delusions of grandeur but his main focus was always to make sure that his audience was engaged and amused.
It didn't deserve the prize in its year, nor even be in the nominees, but there are several other films that have won that I think are worse than this one, the excruciating Around the World in 80 Days would get my vote as the absolute worst winner.
Of this year's actual nominees I think the obvious winner should have been High Noon but my personal choice for the best film of '52 is Nick Ray's The Lusty Men who seems sadly forgotten.
My pick for worst winner is The Broadway Melody of 1929. It's not entertaining, it's not high class, the songs are bland, the acting is either wooden or over the top, and the story is almost non-existent.
Delete