Best Picture:#25
Original Release Date: January 10, 1952
Rating: Passed
Runtime: 2 hours, 32 minutes
Quick Impressions:
Since childhood, I have seen The Greatest Show on Earth denounced as the worst ever Best Picture winner again and again. But I’m always wary of such claims because it’s also enduringly popular to bash Oliver!, the first movie I ever loved. Usually when Oscar buffs complain that Oliver! didn’t deserve to win Best Picture, what they mean is that they love 2001: A Space Odyssey, and they’re mad it didn’t win instead. I think this obsessive need to tear down excellent movies arises from a flawed approach to decoding what an Oscar win actually means.
I’ve been obsessed with the Oscars since childhood, and my personal take is that the very best picture of the year almost never wins Best Picture. That’s just not the way it works. The film is a film, and other factors beyond its control determine if it wins a statuette—stuff like politics, popularity, the energy of the moment, the particulars of the rules, maybe even the size of the cast and crew and how many friends those people have who get to vote. With few exceptions, though, all the nominees for Best Picture are films of merit that would be deserving of the award. The win is tied to an ephemeral moment. The nomination is what signifies that a film is deserving (which is not to say that the lack of a nomination means a film is not deserving. A lot of movies come out in a year). If the film you consider best of year gets nominated for Best Picture, congratulations. You’ve won. (Trust me. You’ll be much happier if you view the whole thing this way.)
But I’ll admit that after decades of digesting so much ranting and raving online and in print, I did expect The Greatest Show on Earth to be (at least kind of) bad.
It’s not. In fact, it’s downright good. Perhaps it’s not the greatest film of 1952 (though you have to admit, that’s subjective), but it is an impressive cinematic achievement.
I really liked it, and so did my daughter. Yes, some of the performances are melodramatic, but what else would you expect when the plot synopsis begins, “So Charlton Heston is running a circus…”? I mean, come on!
I’ll admit there’s an element of fun to be had mocking Heston’s intense line delivery or the improbable resolution of the film’s romantic dilemmas. But the major draw of the movie is not that it’s so bad it’s good. It’s a legitimately impressive production. It doesn’t just involve a circus. It shows you the actual circus. Along with scenes played by Hollywood stars, we get authentic acts by genuine circus performers. The movie is a vibrant time capsule of what travelling circuses were like in 1952. We even get repeated looks at the audience, which lends a delicious (literally, they’re always eating!) metadramatic layer to the lavish spectacle as we stare, captivated at the screen.
The Greatest Show on Earth gives us high-flying trapeze battles, shocking accidents, human drama, tangled romance. And best of all, Gloria Grahame spends at least half of her (ample) screen time riding around in an elephant’s trunk. I was so jealous. I mean, what a way to make an entrance! Can you imagine showing up to a PTA meeting like that? If only I had a trained elephant to ride around in, I think my life would be complete!
The Plot:
Circus manager Brad Braden has “sawdust in his veins.” He eats, sleeps, and breathes circus. He runs a clean show, and he knows how to give the audience what they want while keeping the circus in the black. Everybody works; everybody wins. To guarantee financial backing for a full season, Brad hires famed trapeze artist The Great Sebastian to perform his death-defying act in the center ring. There’s just one catch. Brad has already promised the center ring to his hard-working and talented girlfriend Holly, who desperately wants it. Well, okay, there’s another catch, too. The Great Sebastian has a reputation as a trouble-maker and a ladies’ man. Soon he and Holly are engaging in an all-out battle for center ring, performing hair-raising stunts that grow riskier and riskier at every performance. And as if that’s not bad enough, their out-of-the-ring behavior is stressing Brad out, too, because the Great Sebastian is beating his time with Holly. Then a string of surprising things happens. Meanwhile, Phyllis keeps leaving her gum on the moon, Angel constantly rides around on various parts of an elephant, and Buttons wears his clown make-up 24/7.
The Good:
I can’t think of a better way to see a circus. The authenticity here is astounding. And I have kind of a thing for circuses. (In college, my friends and I made a running joke out of my habit of suggesting when bored, “Let’s go to the circus and…be in the circus.”) Joining the circus sounds so fun to me. I’m drawn to the spectacle, the excitement, the camaraderie, the amazing acts, the colors, the concessions, and, of course, all of those impressive animals. The recurrent allegations of animal cruelty that have all but killed the circus in recent years sadden me so deeply. Of course, I don’t want animals to be abused. In the circuses of my imagination, the animals are all so happy, playing the calliope and eating cotton candy. I wish reality could live up to my daydreams.
I love the elephants in particular. This movie features so many elephants, all gorgeously shot with their not inconsiderable talents beautifully documented. (I worry that sounds like innuendo, but I’m just talking about talented elephants.) Watching them made me wish Cecil B. DeMille had made a movie about Hannibal. (He didn’t, did he?) The actual Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus assisted in the making of the film, so many of the acts we see are real. This movie gives us lions, and tigers, and bears, plus monkeys, and dogs, and horses! In one of the most memorable, non-Hollywood moments, we see an act featuring a little dog, riding a big dog, riding a horse!
No greenscreen here, no CGI. These are real animals doing tricks, and the human tricks are equally impressive. Betty Hutton and Cornel Wild surely aren’t doing all of the most dangerous trapeze work themselves, but somebody is doing it. Real humans are doing these graceful and difficult stunts before our very eyes. And the actors are doing some of it. I’ve read that Hutton in particular spent a sizeable chunk of time preparing for the role by studying trapeze and that she does, in fact, do quite a number of her own stunts. And Gloria Grahame (who ends up giving my favorite performance of the film) is definitely actually riding an elephant in a number of surprising and physically demanding positions. (There’s also a scene where she lies on the ground for a painfully long time while an elephant’s foot hovers precariously over her face.)
In general, the cast is delightful. On full display is Charlton Heston’s remarkable ability to command the screen and seem like a parody of himself simultaneously. (Few other actors pull that off so completely as Heston. He practically demands to be mocked, and yet he has such presence, you would watch him forever.) For all of his larger-than-life absurdity, Heston manages to be highly convincing as Brad. We thoroughly believe that the driving force of his life is that circus. He may be a bit perplexing as the object of so many women’s affections (as he is intended to be), but if there’s one thing Brad knows and loves, it’s how to run that circus.
It took me a while to warm to Betty Hutton as Holly. At first, I found her performance kind of hammy. But gradually, I changed my mind. As a character, Holly is likeable. For all her bluster about Brad having sawdust in his veins, she’s just as obsessed with her act as he is with the entire circus. And Hutton’s interpretation of Holly grew on me pretty quickly. It’s hard not to be impressed by someone who sings, dances, jumps, leaps, and does any number of tricks on the trapeze.
Cornel Wilde’s performance surprised me. He’s a much better actor than I realized. And I was all set to hate Sebastian, but to my astonishment, he turned out to be a sympathetic, kind, and genuine.
Dorothy Lamour is pretty charming as Phyllis, and very early on, I found her kooky character perhaps the most engaging. (There’s even a brief cameo by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby who show up in the audience to watch her sing.) But before long, Gloria Grahame rode in on her elephant and changed all that. By the end of the movie, my favorite character was clearly Angel, the wise-cracking, Brad-loving circus lifer who’s been around the block a few times—on an elephant. Her character first got my attention by riding around in an elephant’s trunk. But soon I began to love her for her sharp, sly humor, too. By the movie’s end, I was far more emotionally invested in Angel than in anyone else. I’ve never given much thought to Gloria Grahame before, and I’ve always felt Jean Hagen should have won Best Supporting Actress for Singin’ in the Rain, but I’m going to have to watch The Bold and the Beautiful now. I’ve never seen it. (I get annoyed with people every year for championing the only nominee they’ve seen, so I guess I need to apply my own rules to the past.)
Grahame’s Angel is my favorite character, but a closer runner-up is Buttons. Perhaps the strongest performance in the film is given by James Stewart. Heston and Hutton seem to be acting for an audience in a huge arena at a live circus, but Stewart gives a quieter, more complex performance as a clown who never takes off his make-up. Why does he wear full make-up round the clock and answer only to his clown name? This mystery leads to the first of many surprises in the film.
That’s another fabulous strength of The Greatest Show on Earth. Its plot is impossible to predict. Early on, I thought I knew everything that would happen, but wow, was I ever wrong! I kept calling what was about to happen next and making a complete fool of myself. The person with the most initially shocking story (Buttons) ends up having the storyline that’s easiest to predict (once we know there’s something there to predict). But other parts of this movie are downright shocking. Like any good circus, The Greatest Show on Earth keeps us on the edge of our seats, watching in breathless suspense.
The other great thing is that we get to see the circus audience watching along with us. If my impressions are correct, some of these people are extras with one or two scripted lines, but others are real audience members from actual shows. Watching reminded me constantly of Disneyland, of candid footage of park guests used in Disney TV shows as well as even more candid footage of people milling around in the park from my grandpa’s old home movies. I also thought of crowd scenes in recent documentary footage I’ve seen of other events from the past (like in the movie Apollo 11 as just one example). Shots of authentic 1950s crowds like this let me imagine that I was actually watching the real circus live at that time. And the way the people in the crowds are constantly consuming food in exactly the same way that they greedily binge the spectacle (and we shove in their reactions like popcorn) is wonderful, a tasty bite of meta delight.
The real Emmett Kelly also appears as himself, and Hopalong Cassidy shows up, too.
Best Scene Visually:
The most unexpected scene in the movie steals the show for me. Something happens late in the film that took my daughter and me completely by surprise. It’s not just that we didn’t expect it when it happened. We didn’t expect it at all. This scene alone must have cost a fortune. And there are elements of it that surely posed logistical problems. Filming this must have been really something. I don’t want to spoil the movie for you, but the number of factors in play here, the sheer scale of what had to be shown made me think of another extremely successful blockbuster and Best Picture winner that came out when I was in college.
Best Action Sequence:
Sebastian and Holly keep pushing each other further and further during their intense aerial routines up on the trapeze. My daughter and I were on the edge of our seats. But, again, we did not expect what we got when it happened.
Best Scene:
This is tough. I’m a huge fan of Angel and her elephant, so, of course, the moment when he almost stomps her brains in is a highlight for me. But I actually think all of the best moments within scenes belong to Buttons. Het gets all of these wonderful moments, significant looks, hurried exchanges. Something he does to solve a problem near the end of the film is probably the movie’s best scene.
Even though some elements of the ending feel rushed and/or garbled, Betty Hutton’s rousing, Pied Piper ploy does make a strong ending of a kind. Buttons gets caught up in this moment, too. It’s a strong finish (from a circus-oriented point of view).
The Negatives:
The rushed conclusion of the love story is a bit weird. I think more time is needed there. Personally, I found the alternate pairing of the characters more satisfactory. Now for two of the characters involved, the way things shake out seems happy enough. But the pairing of the other two doesn’t really make sense, and it seems odd that both are so contented with this arrangement so quickly.
One element of the movie I found surprisingly delightful is the way the film portrays the members of the circus as a family. All of the women are particularly close, kind of sororal. They’re rivals, but they’ve still got each other’s backs. They may have major grievances against each other, but they’re never not speaking, and they always genuinely look out for one another’s welfare. Honestly, I found myself wondering if polyamory might not be the best solution to the prolonged couple confusion in this film. The circus is a big family, after all. They all seem to love each other. They’re a society unto themselves. Why not live by their own rules and quit agonizing over who “gets” whom? Clearly they all have “sawdust in their veins.”
If you’re watching the movie to see how the romantic subplots play out, then the ending of the film is just not satisfying. The resolution is inadequate. But if you’re just there for the circus, The Greatest Show on Earth certainly gives us that.
Yes, Charlton Heston is a bit intense, and Betty Hutton is kind of stagey, but I mean, it is the circus. We don’t have much time in the evenings now that school has started, so my daughter and I watched this movie in four parts, and we were always excited to get back to it. The pageantry is fun, and the surprises are so plentiful that we were always on the edge of our seats waiting for something only to be surprised instead by something we never once expected.
I’ll confess, I was sort of hoping for some deus ex machina resolution for Buttons. I mean, would it matter that much to have a, “Well, I sure did enjoy my totally pointless, wasted trip to the circus, wink wink,” moment? Surely all of his trips don’t end up being a total waste of time, (wink wink), so would he (or anyone else) have been hurt by this one wasted evening
Overall:
I enjoyed watching every minute of The Greatest Show on Earth, and so did my daughter. It made me want to time travel back to 1952 (the year both my parents were born), and take them as babies to the circus. While I was there, I would learn to ride around in an elephant’s trunk for sure.