The Greatest Show on Earth

Infobox_Film
name = The Greatest Show on Earth


caption= original movie poster
writer = Fredric M. Frank
Theodore St. John
Frank Cavett
Barré Lyndon
starring = Betty Hutton
Cornel Wilde
Charlton Heston
James Stewart
Dorothy Lamour
director = Cecil B. DeMille
producer = Cecil B. DeMille
music = Victor Young
cinematography = George Barnes, ASC
editing = Anne Bauchens
distributor = Paramount Pictures
released =
country =
runtime = 152 min.
language = English
amg_id = 1:20838
imdb_id = 0044672
budget =

"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.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.

Plot

The three main characters are also involved in a romantic triangle. Other subplots involve performers played by Dorothy Lamour and Gloria Grahame, and a clown who never removes his makeup, played by James Stewart. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby played cameo roles as circus spectators, and Edmond O'Brien has a similar unbilled appearance.

Behind-the-scene melodrama is interwoven with almost documentary-style scenes of realistic circus performances in lavish costumes by Edith Head and others. Towards the end, a spectacular scene involves a massive collision of the two trains that carry the circus from town to town. The real Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's (1951, 81st Edition), with its complement of 1400 people, hundreds of animals, and 60 carloads of equipment and tents appears in the film.

Awards

The movie won an Academy Award for Best Picture. It also won an Oscar for Best Story.

Controversies

The film was a huge success at the box office, which might account partly for its Oscar wins, but despite its awards, "The Greatest Show on Earth" has often been cited by film historians and movie buffs as one of DeMille's lesser motion pictures. Many critics and film fans 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 [http://imdb.com/news/wenn/2006-03-01/#celeb9] and the British film magazine "Empire" rated it #3 on their list of the 10 worst Oscar winners. [http://in.rediff.com/movies/2005/mar/01worst.htm] It has the lowest spot on Rotten Tomatoes' list of the 81 films to win Best Picture. [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/features/special/2007/botbp/?r=81&mid=1008916]

Erik Lundegaard of MSNBC said "Greatest Show" was a dull, bloated romance". [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11700333/]

Other 1952 movies of high critical acclaim include "High Noon", "The Quiet Man" and "Singin' in the Rain", which are often offered as alternative winners.

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; moreover, the most highly praised film of the year, "High Noon", was produced by Carl Foreman, who would soon be blacklisted. "The Greatest Show on Earth" 's win is seen by some as an effort to appease McCarthy.

"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. [Interview with Steven Spielberg, Mark Kermode, BBC Culture Show, broadcast 2006-11-04]

Main 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

Production notes

During a song by Dorothy Lamour, the camera pans the audience, among whose members are Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Dorothy Lamour was the frequent co-star of Crosby and Hope in the "Road to..." movies.

To her great delight, Lucille Ball was offered a part in the picture by DeMille and wanted very much to sign on for the project, but ruled it as too much of a burden between her pregnancy with her second child, Desi Arnaz Jr., and her "I Love Lucy" commitments.

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.

James Stewart plays Buttons, the mysterious clown who never takes off his make-up even between shows. There are subtle hints as to his motives and background: he wraps bandages around a trapeze bar in an expert manner; he holds a discreet conversation with a member of the audience who turns out to be his mother; and, when an acrobat has a nasty fall, a doctor expresses admiration for the way Buttons handles his injuries, the clown explaining that he used to be a pharmacist's mate. It turns out that he is in fact on the run from the law, in a way similar to that of Doctor Richard Kimble in the classic TV series "The Fugitive", which was made some ten years later.

The antagonist in the movie is predominantly "The Great Sebastian", the high trapeze performer, played by Cornel Wilde.

The self-titled closing theme song served as the theme for WGN-TV's long running "The Bozo Show" in its various incarnations until the program ended in 2001.

References

Awards

###@@@KEY@@@###s-ach

External links