Daily Archives: September 16, 2015

The Greatest Show on Earth
Directed by Cecil B. De Mille
Written by Written by Fredric M. Frank, Barré Lyndon, and Theodore St. John; story by Frank, St. John, and Frank Cavett
1952/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Midway barker: That’s all, ladies and gentlemen, that’s all. Come again to the greatest show on earth. Bring the children. Bring the old folks. You can shake the sawdust off your feet, but you can’t shake it outta your heart. Come again, folks. The Greatest Show on Earth. Come again.[/box]

I will cut this movie some slack for the circus acts and Jimmy Stewart.  Otherwise, I thought it was pretty dreadful.

Cecil B. Demille breaks in throughout in a voice-over narration with words of wisdom about the place of the circus in the hearts of young and old alike and the hard work of the performers.

Brad Bredon (Charleton Heston) manages the circus in question.  He is all-business.  Holly (Betty Hutton), the trapeze artist that loves him, says he has sawdust in his veins.  Lately, the circus hasn’t been doing so well, and the owners have been talking about doing a shorter season.  Brad saves the day by hiring French trapeze idol Sebastian (Cornel Wilde).  The owners agree that the company can keep touring as long as it is making money.

The problem with Brad’s scheme is that Sebastian will work only in the center ring thus edging Holly out of the coveted spot.  She vows that the audience will be looking only at her in the side ring during Sebastian’s act and proceeds to compete with him doing increasingly dangerous stunts.  Sebastian doesn’t seem to mind the competition much since he wants Holly as the latest of his many conquests.  Holly does not heed the warnings of Angel (Gloria Grahame), who previously had a fling with Sebastian herself.  To make the love triangle a pentangle, Angel is in love with Brad too and is loved by her insanely jealous elephant trainer boss, Klaus.

Beloved by all is Bubbles the clown (Jimmy Stewart).  He has a habit of staying in make-up at all times and it becomes increasingly clear that he is carrying a guilty secret.  To add to the drama, an organized crime boss (Lawrence Tierney) and his henchmen are running illegal gambling operations and con games in the side show.  They are out for revenge when Brad shuts them down.  With a host of real circus performers, including Emmett Kelly.

Betty Hutton should never have been allowed to do anything but comedy.  She overacts horribly and makes this blockbuster even worse than it had to be.  Then we get Cornell
Wilde with a cringe-worthy French accent.  The story and dialogue are just a mess of cliches.  And this won the Oscar in competition with High Noon and The Quiet Man?

The Greatest Show on Earth won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Writing, Motion Picture Story.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Director, Best Costume Design, Color, and Best Film Editing.

Trailer

Red Planet Mars
Directed by Harry Horner
Written by John R. Balderston and Anthony Veiller from a play by Balderston and John Hoare
1952/USA
Melaby Pictures Corp.
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Russian Commissar: That will silence their hymns. What do these superstitious peasants think? They cannot compete against our guns![/box]

I generally don’t review B-movies on my blog but will make an exception for this bizarrely fascinating tale.

American astronomers have observed recent drastic changes on the planet Mars including the rapid melting of a polar ice-cap to fill the numerous canals that cover the planet.  This encourages hot shot radio expert Chris Cronyn (Peter Graves) to intensify his efforts to make contact with the Martians.  After seeing the astronomer’s findings, Chris’s wife Linda (Andrea King), who had formerly been his enthusiastic assistant, is dead set against this.  She now believes that contact will only increase the possibility of the nuclear holocaust that has preoccupied her since the end of the war.

However, Peter prevails and soon starts picking up signals.  These remain meaningless however until the Cronyn’s son Stewart suggests opening communications by transmitting the first few decimal places of pi and waiting for a response with the remaining figures. This works splendidly and soon the government sends out a cryptography expert to de-code the messages.

The first answers from Mars reveal that the Martians live 300 years and have solved all their power and food problems.  For some reason, this information causes the global economy to collapse.  Now we find out that the Russians have hired Franz Calder, the Nazi inventor of the same transmitter used by Cronyn on the same project.  From his hideout in the Andes, the evil Calder is unable to contact Mars itself but can track the American’s communications with the planet.  The Russians are gleefully waiting to take over in the chaos following the financial meltdown.

Cronyn, formerly a press darling, is now demonized.  Washington asks him to shut his transmitter down.  Then something amazing happens.  When the Martians are asked how they have avoided nuclear disaster, they respond by saying they follow the teachings of their supreme being about good and evil.  The Martians’ messages grow increasingly Bible based.  I will not reveal the bizarre last act of this drama, which I think should be seen.

Wow, this has everything except actual Martians – drunken Nazis, brutal Russians, Cold War paranoia and God.  The script by Dracula writer Balderston and Vellier, who was a writer on The Killers, is pretty tight and effective considering the subject matter.  What this movie lacks in special effects it makes up for in a vivid portrayal of 1952 anxieties.  I went in looking for a good bad movie but really think it is more of a pretty good movie that has somehow not gotten the following it deserves.  Mind you its all very, very overblown – but in a good way.  Currently available on YouTube.

Clip – opening