The Greatest Show on Earth (film)

The Greatest Show on Earth
Theatrical release poster
Directed byCecil B. DeMille
Screenplay by
Story by
Produced byCecil B. DeMille
Starring
Narrated byCecil B. DeMille
CinematographyGeorge Barnes
Edited byAnne Bauchens
Music byVictor Young
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release dates
  • January 10, 1952 (1952-01-10) (New York City, premiere)
Running time
152 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$4 million[1]
Box office$36 million[1]

The Greatest Show on Earth is a 1952 American epic drama film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille,[2] 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.

The film won 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

Brad Braden is the general manager of the world's largest railroad circus. The show's board of directors wants a short 10-week season rather than risking losing money in a postwar economy. Brad bargains to keep the circus on the road as long as it is profitable, keeping the 1,400 performers and staff employed.

Brad tells his aerialist girlfriend Holly that she is no longer the starring act with top billing. World-famous aerialist and notorious ladies' man The Great Sebastian has been hired as the main star to increase attendance. Buttons the Clown, who never appears without his makeup, seems to possess medical knowledge. Holly 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, who performs an iron jaw and vocal act. Sebastian, attracted to Holly, offers her the center ring, knowing that Brad will never allow the change. Holly is disappointed and vows that her ring will become the main focus.

Buttons' mother attends a performance and warns him that the police are on his trail. The competition between the two aerialists becomes increasingly dangerous. The aerial duel ends when Sebastian removes his safety net and then suffers a serious fall. Buttons tends to him before the ambulance arrives, impressing the circus' doctor. Holly regains the center ring and star billing, but she is devastated by how she attained it. Brad is unable to comfort her because she has romantic feelings for Sebastian.

Brad catches and fires crooked midway concessionaire Harry for cheating customers. Harry hangs about the show's periphery sowing disaffection, particularly with the jealous Klaus. Sebastian eventually rejoins the show, but with his right arm paralyzed, he can only perform menial work. Holly professes that she loves Sebastian, believing Brad has no feelings for her. When Angel starts a relationship with Brad, Klaus threatens to kill Angel during a performance with one of the elephants. Brad intervenes and fires Klaus.

An FBI special agent hunting the mercy killer accompanies the circus train, believing that the doctor might be hiding in the show. Brad, never having seen Buttons out of makeup, does not recognize the doctor's photo. Buttons tells Brad that Sebastian has regained some feeling in his hand. Brad, having made the connection, casually mentions that the FBI man will be taking fingerprints at the next stop, allowing Buttons to escape or hide.

During a jump to a new venue, Harry and Klaus stop the first train to rob the pay wagon. Klaus sees the second section coming and realizes that Angel is aboard. He aims 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, and then collides with the first section. Brad is pinned in the wreckage and is severely bleeding. Holly stops Buttons from fleeing and begs him to help Brad. Buttons gives Brad a direct blood transfusion from Sebastian. The FBI agent assists him and later reluctantly arrests Buttons.

Brad realizes that he loves Holly and Sebastian proposes to Angel. Holly takes command, mounting a parade and an open-air performance before leading the troupe around the three rings, a recovery from the disaster that ensures that the circus will continue its national tour.

Cast

The film features approximately 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.[4] John Ringling North plays himself as the owner of the circus.

The film includes several unbilled cameo appearances (mostly in the circus audiences), including those of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Lamour's costars in the Road to ... films.[4] 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 trainwreck sequence. A barker, kept anonymous until the film's end, is seen in the closing moments of the film, and the voice is revealed to be that of Edmond O'Brien.

Production

The film was shot in Sarasota, Florida, where locals were paid 75 cents per hour as extras.[5]

Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde had to learn how to use the trapeze for their scenes, although Wilde may have faced difficulty because of his acrophobia. Hutton became proficient with the single bar, and film footage exists showing her rehearsing 40 feet (12 m) in the air.[6] Hutton's stunt double was La Norma Fox, also from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.[7][8]

Art Concello, RB&BB's general manager at the time and the first flyer ever to land the triple somersault in performance, devised the solution to The Great Sebastian's fall from the high rigging and executed the stunt for DeMille.

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 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

The Greatest Show on Earth premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York on January 10, 1952[9] and played there for 11 weeks, a record duration that it shared with Random Harvest (1942) that lasted for many years.[10]

The film earned $12.8 million[11] 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 at that time.[12] It was also the most popular film in Britain in 1952[13] and in France in 1953.[14]

Reception

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther called the film lusty triumph of circus showmanship and movie skill" and a "piece of entertainment that will delight movie audiences for years", writing:

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.[15]

Critic Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times wrote:

The old trite phrase "with full panoply of glory" may well be applied to the way in which Cecil B. De Mille brings the circus to the screen in "The Greatcst Show on Earth," a picture to be reckoned as one of the greatest of this master showman's shows. ... De Mille provides the maximum of entertainment in his production, not to speak of glamour, and above all the spirit that forever lurks under the big top. Even De Mille dissenters—and there are alwavs bound to be a number among the supercritical—will unquestionably be fascinated by this example of his peculiar picture-making genius. He has all the latitude necessary in the subject itself for gorgeous and tinseled display. He succeeds by the very nature of things in giving what happens great authenticity. Moreover he tells a human narrative that has both appealing and thrilling climaxes.[16]

Accolades

At the 25th Academy Awards in 1953, The Greatest Show on Earth was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two (for Best Picture and Best Motion Picture Story). DeMille's work as producer-director earned him his first Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Director, as well as his only competitive Oscar win (Best Picture).[a] That same year, DeMille also received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award and Gloria Grahame won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for another film, The Bad and the Beautiful. 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 Won [18]
Best Director Nominated
Best Motion Picture Story Fredric M. Frank, Theodore St. John, and Frank Cavett Won
Best Costume Design – Color Edith Head, Dorothy Jeakins, and Miles White Nominated
Best Film Editing Anne Bauchens Nominated
Cleveland Film Critics Circle Award Best Picture Cecil B. DeMille Won [19]
Directors Guild of America Awards Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures Cecil B. DeMille Nominated [20]
Golden Globe Awards Best Motion Picture – Drama Won [21]
Best Director – Motion Picture Cecil B. DeMille Won
Best Cinematography – Color George Barnes and Peverell Marley Won
New York Film Critics Circle Awards Best Director Cecil B. DeMille Nominated [22]

Oscar controversy

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.[23] MSNBC's Erik Lundegaard called Crash the "worst Best Picture winner since the 'dull, bloated' film The Greatest Show on Earth."[24] 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.[25] Premiere placed the film on its list of the 10 worst Oscar winners.[26] 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).[27]

Stanley Kramer alleged that the film's Best Picture award was the result of the political climate in Hollywood in 1952.[28] DeMille was a conservative Republican involved with the National Committee for a Free Europe while 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 allegedly blacklisted.

Some believed that the award was a measure of respect for DeMille's career. In early March 1953, columnist Erskine Johnson predicted that The Greatest Show on Earth would win Best Picture: "High Noon and Moulin Rouge are in the same league, but I believe popular Academy sentiment will vote Cecil B. DeMille the award."[29] After winning the Best Picture Academy Award, DeMille said, "I thought The Quiet Man or High Noon would get it."[30] On March 20, 1953, James Bacon of the Associated Press wrote:

A happy Hollywood rejoiced today in honoring one of its founding fathers—Cecil B. De Mille whose Greatest Show on Earth became his first [Best Picture] Oscar winner in 40 years of epic making.

It was one of the few times Hollywood has honored one of its greats while he was still around to enjoy it.

The movie pioneer, now 72, was the big star of the silver jubilee Academy Awards last night. A film colony audience cheered wildly in the RKO Pantages Theater as millions more for the first time saw the ceremony via television.[31]

Influence

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.[32]

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.[33] 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 trainwreck sequence from The Greatest Show on Earth is briefly shown on a television. The opening scene of Spielberg's 2022 semiautobiographical film The Fabelmans dramatizes his reaction to viewing the film for the first time.[34]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Cleopatra (1934) was the first DeMille film nominated for Best Picture ("Outstanding Production"), but at that time the nomination was awarded to the studio instead of the producer.[17] DeMille would receive a second Best Picture nomination for The Ten Commandments (1956) four years later.

References

  1. ^ a b "The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  2. ^ "The Greatest Show on Earth". Turner Classic Movies. Atlanta: Turner Broadcasting System (Time Warner). Archived from the original on July 27, 2011. Retrieved April 17, 2017.
  3. ^ Lentz, Robert J. (January 10, 2014). Gloria Grahame, Bad Girl of Film Noir: The Complete Career. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-8722-6.
  4. ^ a b Michelson, Herb (January 2, 1951). "The Greatest Show on Earth". Variety. 185 (4): 68.
  5. ^ Lahurd, Jeff (1990). Quintessential Sarasota. Sarasota, Florida: Clubhouse Publishing, Inc. p. 78. ISBN 1879026007.
  6. ^ Hutton Gluttons - The Betty Hutton Website (July 23, 2011). Newsreel - Betty Hutton Receives Photoplay Award (1951). Retrieved May 12, 2026 – via YouTube.
  7. ^ "Circus Aerialist and Performer La Norma Fox". www.circusesandsideshows.com. Archived from the original on December 21, 2021.
  8. ^ "Recollections of a life lived in the circus". FOX 13 Tampa Bay. September 14, 2016. Archived from the original on January 18, 2022.
  9. ^ Corby, Jane (January 11, 1952). "At the Movies". Brooklyn Eagle. Brooklyn, New York. Retrieved August 25, 2025.
  10. ^ "Million-$ Gross In 5 Weeks; 'Mink' A Radio City Wow". Variety. July 18, 1962. p. 1.
  11. ^ Finler, Joel Waldo (2003). The Hollywood Story. Wallflower Press. pp. 358–359. ISBN 978-1-903364-66-6.
  12. ^ "Paramount Holding Pace of September". Variety. October 7, 1953. p. 18. Retrieved October 12, 2019 – via Archive.org.
  13. ^ "Comedian Tops Film Pill". The Sunday Herald. Sydney. December 28, 1952. p. 4. Retrieved July 9, 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  14. ^ "1953 at the box office". Box Office Story.
  15. ^ Crowther, Bosley (January 11, 1952). "The Screen in Review". The New York Times. p. 17.
  16. ^ Schallert, Edwin (February 22, 1952). "'Greatest Show' De Mille Triumph". Los Angeles Times. p. 7, Part III.
  17. ^ "The 7th Academy Awards". Oscars. Retrieved February 7, 2026.
  18. ^ "The 25th Academy Awards (1953) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on July 6, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2011.
  19. ^ "DeMille Gets Award". Eugene Register-Guard. United Press. February 27, 1953. p. 2A. Retrieved February 7, 2026.
  20. ^ "5th Annual DGA Awards". Directors Guild of America Awards. Retrieved December 15, 2024.
  21. ^ "The Greatest Show on Earth". Golden Globe Awards. Retrieved December 15, 2024.
  22. ^ "1952 New York Film Critics Circle Awards". New York Film Critics Circle. Retrieved December 15, 2024.
  23. ^ WENN (February 25, 2005). "Mel Gibson's "Braveheart" Voted Worst Oscar Winner".
  24. ^ Oscar misfire: Crash and burn from a March 2006 MSNBC article
  25. ^ "Oscar Robbery: 10 Controversial Best-Picture Races". Time. February 20, 2013.
  26. ^ "Movie & TV News @ IMDb.com – WENN – 1 March 2006". IMDb.
  27. ^ "Rotten Tomatoes List". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on May 4, 2011.
  28. ^ McGee, Scott; Stafford, Jeff. "Why High Noon Is Essential". Turner Classic Movies. Archived from the original on August 7, 2012. Retrieved February 12, 2020.
  29. ^ Johnson, Erskine (March 9, 1953). "'Greatest Show on Earth' Is John's Pick To Win Oscar". The Tuscaloosa News. NEA. p. 7. Retrieved February 7, 2026.
  30. ^ "Happy Hollywood Rejoices in Honor Shown to Old Timer, Cecil DeMille for 'Greatest Show'". Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian. Associated Press. March 20, 1953. p. 4. Retrieved February 7, 2026.
  31. ^ "Cooper, Booth, DeMille Are Winners of Oscar Awards". Nashua Telegraph. Associated Press. March 20, 1953. p. 4. Retrieved February 7, 2026.
  32. ^ Hollis, Tim, ed. (2001). Hi there, boys and girls! America's local children's TV shows. University of Mississippi. p. 361. ISBN 1-57806-396-5. Retrieved February 6, 2011.
  33. ^ Interview with Steven Spielberg, Mark Kermode, BBC Culture Show, broadcast 2006-11-04
  34. ^ "Steven Spielberg's the Fabelmans Hits Close to Home". November 25, 2022.
Wikiquote has quotations related to The Greatest Show on Earth (film).
Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Greatest Show on Earth (film).
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.