Watched "Greatest Show on Earth" 1952 w/Charlton Heston, Betty Hutton & Cornel Wilde. It won Best Picture Oscar in 1952 somehow beating out "High Noon" Don't waste your time! How this flick won best picture is beyond me. Over 1/2 of the movie is filled with filmed Ringling circus acts (though in rich Tecnhicolor!). The weak story is 2nd rate soap opera.

I went to the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus three times in my life. I saw it twice when I was much younger then one more time when I was an adult. I had seen this movie three times before also and always thought it was a good movie. I also have been to the Ringling Bros. Museum in Sarasota.This is a grand movie for its time. It is a gigantic, costly production, much like Ben-Hur or Cleopatra. There are literally thousands of cast members who are in the movie, but are real life Ringling Bros. or some other circus performers. It is amazing to see them work together to put on such a grand performance.The movie is filled with drama, love triangles, jealousy, accidents and conflict. It shows the real life life of how a circus functions all wrapped up in a 152 minutes of run-time. It has one of the most complex productions I know of since Gone with the Wind.However, the movie does not show the dirty side of the circus. While it is all fun and games for the townsfolk who come to see the circus, this move lacks the fundamental truth. It does touch on a little bit of the evils of these circuses, Cecil B. DeMille keeps the viewer from becoming frightened of the circus.Charleston Heston plays the lead role of Brad Braden who is the circus manager. Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, James Stewart, Dorothy Lamour, Gloria Grahame, Lyle Bettger all play supporting cast members. If you watch the opening credits you see several hundred "acts' being given credit for their performances.As time passes, this movie loses its flavor. I dislike it for what it represents in the story, but support it for the amazing production.

Cecil B. DeMille epic about the goings-on at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Charlton Heston's the manager of the circus, Betty Hutton's his girlfriend, and Cornel Wilde is the ladies' man trapeze artist that comes between them. Jimmy Stewart is terrific as Buttons, a clown with a dark secret. The rest of the cast includes Gloria Grahame, Dorothy Lamour, some surprise cameos, and hundreds of real-life Ringling Bros. employees. Most of the cast does a good job. Betty Hutton is a bit of a ham. Looks great in her outfits though. Stewart is the best, not surprisingly to me. The real circus backdrop and the actors actually doing some of their own stunts is very cool and adds to the film's authenticity. Beautiful Technicolor is always a plus. It's such a good-looking movie that sometimes I got lost in taking in all the attractive surroundings, so I had to go back so I could see what I missed in the story. Often cited as one of the worst Oscar winners for Best Picture. I do think there were more deserving films that year (High Noon and The Quiet Man, to name two), but it's still a top notch drama with action, humor, and heart done in the grand Old Hollywood fashion. The train wreck scene alone is worth giving it a look.

I suppose if one is fixated on the idea that this film didn't deserve it's Best Movie Oscar, then it will affect your entire enjoyment of the picture. Maybe what's best is to view this one in a couple of different ways. For it's pure spectacle and color it has few rivals, and the train wreck sequence near the finale was rather impressive, even if the mock-up toy trains were more than evident. If I were to disqualify the picture from it's top award, it would be for the ridiculous attempt at a love story angle between the principals. The romantic pairings bounce off each other like ping pong balls and aren't credible in the least. So there, I've said it and now I've got that out of the way.The thing I think a lot of the reviewers on this board don't appreciate is the sheer immensity of the effort to put on the Big Show. It was mentioned at one point that the Circus employed fourteen hundred and it took a veritable army of people and equipment to move it from one town to the next. Even the filming of the roustabouts putting up and tearing down the Big Top didn't quite capture the enormity of the task, not to mention the skill and precision required to keep it all in some semblance of order. I could only marvel at the effort.As for the show itself, I thought the filming did a good job of presenting a huge array of entertainers as they made their way into the Big Top. The costumes were marvelous and the parade of entertainers and animals made you want to be part of the action. Every now and then you had to get a kick out of the expressions on the faces of the customers. Many quite obviously were filmed without their knowing it, as the unbridled happiness and laughter was entirely evident, and I got a particular kick out of youngsters who might have sat expressionless not knowing what to make of it all. Every now and then an unexpected cameo appearance made it's way on screen, Hopalong Cassidy as a one night stand was pretty cool for example. An even better one might have been Hope and Crosby downing their popcorn as Dorothy Lamour did her 'Lovely Luawana Lady' routine.Regarding the principal players, I thought they did an adequate job apart from the romantic angles I mentioned earlier. It became apparent later in the story why we never saw Jimmy Stewart's real face except in a photo. Personally I thought his character might have been let off the hook after saving Brad Braden's (Heston) life, but you had to consider justice being served. Funny, but you never hear Emmett Kelly's name mentioned any more, he being the sad faced clown who appeared every few scenes. His name used to come up between my friends and I back in the day, along with Bozo and his infamous 'Eat it, Clown' comment that I'm chuckling about as I write this. Yeah, those were the days.So I don't know if you need to have ever been to a real, live circus to appreciate this picture but I don't think it could hurt. They're few and far between these days, and it seems when they show up there are plenty of free passes to go around, so their allure as an attraction has probably passed. A shame in a way, as watching the picture today brings back memories of a life gone by when families could enjoy the simple things together and have fun doing it. You could see it in the faces of the crowd.