While it's hard to imagine, spectacular Circus films are often some of the dullest pictures. I would say that about "The Greatest Show on Earth" (despite its Oscar) and "Circus World"...and I would certainly say that about "Billy Rose's Jumbo". Now I am not saying any of these films are bad, they aren't, but they are awfully colorful but empty...sort of like giant balls of cotton candy!"Billy Rose's Jumbo" is about a circus that is constantly one step away from insolvency. Trying to keep it afloat are Kitty Wonder (Doris Day) and her father 'Pop' Wonder. In between running from creditors and solving little problems as they come up, Kitty also takes time for romance with a handsome rogue, Sam (Stephen Boyd). All of which is set to music...lots and lots of music. The music is actually one of the biggest problem with the picture as there are just too many songs and the plot takes a back seat to a lot of mostly pleasant but VERY forgettable songs. "The Most Beautiful Girl" is one exception....it's more timeless and enjoyable than most but still not enough. So what you end up with, apart from MANY songs is a giant confection of colors and pageantry...but not a whole lot else. It's not a bad film by any stretch but it's also rather tedious and forgettable as well. I say tedious because the film just never seems to know when to end...and ending it sooner would have made for a better film.If you do want to see a circus film, you might do better with a comedy such as Chaplin's "The Circus", Martin & Lewis' "3 Ring Circus" or Joe E. Brown's "The Circus Clown". It seems that humor somehow works better than music and pageantry.

Seriously, find something else to watch. Bad acting, terrible casting, even worse "music". But, go ahead, watch it sometime if you must...the folks who made it tried very hard. There's no accounting for taste. On paper, the cast looks pretty good. Except for poor Stephen Boyd who must have been really hard up for work to take a shot at this turkey. It's nice to see Durante and Doris Day tries hard...but that's not enough. The setting and style are incredibly dated and the movie just doesn't work on any level. The folks who made it should have known better but it's hard to fault them for trying. It's not even "kitschy", it's just a musical that probably shouldn't have been made...at least, not in 1962.

This may have been a stage hit in 1935, but by 1962, it was a stale offering. Cecil B. DeMille had already done everything in his ancient bag of tricks to kill off the circus theme for good ten years earlier with his antique, sentimental extravaganza "The Greatest Show on Earth" in 1952. Jumbo did nothing to revive MGM's glory as the producers of great musical entertainment. I couldn't sit through this entire movie. Doris Day, Jimmy Durante, and Martha Raye----what a trio. Durante and Raye can only be taken in by small portions at a time and an entire movie with them in it is just too much to digest without discomfort. Stephen Boyd is in the cast but the less said about this wooden, uninteresting actor, the better. This movie is a real stinker. And this implies no offense to the title performer, the enormous elephant Jumbo and his toilet habits.

Jumbo is a mighty talented elephant. It's also the ideal word to describe this big-time big-top extravaganza bursting with laughter and love song and dance circus stunts and star power.Radiant Doris Day sings beloved Rodgers and Hart tunes and does her own horseback riding tricks in a dazzle-dazzle musical based on Billy Rose's stage spectacular and featuring circus sequences directed by Busby Berkeley. The story revolves around a circus owner (Jimmy Durante star of the 1935 Broadway original) with only two real attractions: his daughter (day) and popular pachyderm Jumbo. Three-ring pandemonium breaks out when a handsome rival (Stephen Boyd) infiltrates the circus and father daughter and Dad's wisecracking fiancé e (Martha Raye) are suddenly at risk of losing the greatest show on earth