“The Greatest Show on Earth” is often referred to as one of the worst winners of the Best Picture Oscar, so it wasn’t something I was really looking forward to watching. Released in 1952 the movie was the 25th picture to win the big award. Half of the movie is a thrown together story and the other half is an exhibition of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus. It makes for a very different movie than what people today are used to.
The movie focuses on Brad Braden as he tries to keep the circus in the black by hiring a big name star, Sebastian to take the center ring over Holly. A love triangle develops between Brad, Sebastian and Holly that also involves both Sebastian and Holly adding more dangerous elements to their routine until Sebastian is hurt. Also going on is a story about crooked carnival games and a doctor that mercy killed his wife and is now on the run as a clown. All of these stories come to a head when the circus trains crash into each other. The movie ends with a big show out in the open. Overall the movie just isn’t good. The plot that is there is just used to move us from circus act to circus act with little motivation to move the actual plot forward. The circus acts were interesting to watch, but don’t compare to the circus acts that we see today.
From a production standpoint this is also the tale of two movies. The circus acts were well presented but just outdated and the plot part of the movie was just filmed as a lazy side note. Each scene was just point a camera and have them act. Then there are the special effects, I realize it was the 1950’s, but they could have done some better cuts to make them more effective. I found Sebastian’s fall where we see the ground give way like a net would to be pathetic and the train crash looked so much like a toy train crashing that I couldn’t take it seriously. With a cast featuring Charlton Heston and James Stewart I would expect the acting to be above par but there was so little for them to work with that you could have thrown the all of the world’s best actors in there and it wouldn’t be special.
This movie just does not work in today’s world. If a similar movie were made it would not be an Oscar picture. It would be either a summer blockbuster if they went over the top or it would be made into one of those 3D concert type films. Don’t waste your time watching this go to the real circus instead. It gets 1 out of 5 stars.
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