The Greatest Show on Earth

The Greatest Show On Earth - But Not The Best Picture
As a circus buff, I can't imagine anybody BUT C.B. De Mille having the scope of vision to do justice to a show deliberately created to be so big that one person simply can't take it all in, and the stories and subplots that abound under the biggest of the Big Tops. That said, I do have to wonder what on earth the Academy was thinking when they voted TGSOE the Oscar as Best Picture of 1952. That year saw the release of High Noon, Ivanhoe, The Quiet Man and Singin' In The Rain, any one of which could lay better claim to the title of Best Picture in terms of writing, plot and cinematography. Why did TGSOE win the Oscar?

I believe it is because the film was seen as a "last chance" vote for De Mille; particularly ironic given that C.B. received the Thalberg that year as well, and for the same reason: for creating and producing consistently high-quality movies. De Mille's best work was decades behind him when he filmed the 1951 edition of the Ringling Brothers - Barnum &...

Best? Great? Whatever ... It's Marvelous Entertainment!
Movie: **** DVD Quality: ***** DVD Extras: N/A

It almost seems that "The Greatest Show on Earth" would be more highly respected today if it had not won the Best Picture Oscar in 1952; reviewers often tend to compare its value to that of other films released the same year (especially "The Quiet Man", which won Best Director for John Ford and "Singin' in the Rain" which failed to secure a Best Picture nomination at all), and find TGSOE lacking. Such criticism is patently unfair. After all, whether it won as a fluke because the other nominees split the vote, or whether the Academy voters simply went for it in a big way, it isn't TGSOE's fault that it emerged the big winner - blame the Academy! And Oscar considerations aside, it's undeniable that TGSOE is exactly what its producers and director Cecil B. DeMille intended it to be: a great big, gaudy, colorful, lavish example of traditional storytelling and old-fashioned entertainment that would delight and thrill audiences...

DEMILLE AT HIS BARNUM BEST!
"The Greatest Show on Earth" is probably Cecil B. DeMille's best sound film (sans the 1956 perennial "The Ten Commandments") since it is a film about showmanship. DeMille was cinema's greatest showman, whether his movie plots were historical, religious, dramatic, or just plain American 1950's hokum, such as this one. "The Greatest Show on Earth" succeeds at glorifying the lost art of the world's traveling circus when the circus was performed in tents, vs. the great arenas of today. DeMille's narration adds an air of authenticity to the proceedings, but the audience knows full well that this movie is a big show itself, which is low on the acting quality but big on the spectacle. Some of the matte shots and special effects show their age, especially the model train wreck which climaxes the film. Most fun of all is seeing Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in the circus audience watching their Paramount co-star Dorothy Lamour perform.

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