The Greatest Show On Earth 1952

The Film:

Apparently the clue is in the title - if you believe everything you read! I have vague memories of half-watching this one way back, getting bored half-way through, but thinking it was just about ok because Jimmy Stewart is in it. I also misremembered it as being about three and a half hours long. It's actually only two and half hours, so maybe that tells you something else about my previous experience with the film!

This one is generally remembered as one of the worst Best Picture winners - mainly because of what didn't win in it's place. High Noon was a nominee, but the suggestion that it was an allegory for the McCarthy witch-hunts may have been what put off the voters. Singin In The Rain was also released this year and got a few nominations, but not one for Best Picture. Maybe the Academy felt they had lavished all the technicolor praise that they needed to on Gene Kelly the previous year. Either way, both of these films are right near the top of the AFI all-time list. The Greatest Show On Earth is not.

The Ceremony:

Look closely - they were already doing score sheets way back then!
(That's a fab enough fact for me to ignore the stray apostrophe!)

The Hollywood end of the ceremony was held at the Pantages Theater again (as it would be for the rest of the decade) on March 19th 1953.

Although not the first to be filmed, it was the first to be televised and also the first to be held simultaneously in Hollywood and New York, something which happened for the next five years. Part of the reason for the coast-to-coast ceremonies was due to an increasing number of nominees having commitments on Broadway at this time of the year (a ridiculous number of awards were accepted by proxies the year before). This also accounted for the late start of 10.30pm - so people could get there after their curtain came down.

Bob Hope presented from Hollywood and Frederic March from New York, with Conrad Nagel emceeing for the TV audience.


Other Notable Winners That Night:

Gloria Grahame - now the subject of her very
own movie (and potentially several more!)

They didn't completely overlook High Noon - it actually won more awards than TGSOE, one of which went to Gary Cooper as Best Actor.

John Ford won his fourth Directing Award for The Quiet Man - he overtook Frank Capra and still holds the most awards in this category.

Shirley Booth won Best Actress, becoming the first woman over 50 to win the award, as well as the last one born in the 19th Century.

Best Supporting awards went to Anthony Quinn and Gloria Grahame - and I've put a photo of Gloria up there because she's currently back in the film spotlight, not quite managing to die in Liverpool. She was an interesting character in more ways than one (some more dubious than others) - but she beat Jean Hagen to the Oscar, so she probably deserves more recognition for that than she gets. (Having just watched Born Yesterday I now wonder whether that was the reason that Jean Hagen didn't win - Judy H was doing that voice to great effect two years earlier.....)

Best Song:

Another of High Noon's awards was for Best Song. Much imitated, much parodied and probably well deserving of the award (even if it did beat Thumbelina!). Take it away Tex....

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

"Come on with the rain...."

I've already mentioned them both and I can't objectively separate the two. With the benefit of hindsight, both of these films wipe the floor with TGSOE.

Singin In The Rain is now seen as (arguably) the greatest screen musical. It's a personal favourite and one that I have seen over and over again. Although the ballet from An American In Paris is pretty unbeatable, everything else in Singin In The Rain wipes the floor with its predecessor. Particularly the story and the expert way in which all four of the leads (Kelly, Reynolds, O'Connor and Hagen) play their parts for comedy and drama in all the right proportions.

"Come on with the showdown....."

It was totally robbed - and couldn't even get a nomination for Best Song because all the songs (including the title song) had been used in previous shows and films - which was sort of the point of the story. It is a wonderful film!

Out of the actual Best Picture nominees we also had Ivanhoe, Moulin Rouge (not that one!) and Best Director winner The Quiet Man. But it was all about High Noon. Gary Cooper won his second Oscar as the sheriff with a stronger sense of duty than Kant, biding his time (despite Grace Kelly's protestations) waiting for the gang that are coming to kill him. It's a masterpiece of tension and an early example of a very different type of western - no "yee-haws" and not a great deal of action. But a compelling and intelligent story. Unfortunately the production got caught up a bit too much with McCarthyism and too many people talked of the film (admiringly, rather than disparagingly) as a clever allegory against blacklisting. And that is probably why it lost the big prize (although Zinneman would go on to direct two other Oscar-winning films - including next year's winner - with very different settings, but very similar heroes!)

Our Verdict:

Dorothy Lamour - one of a trio of strong women in this film -
they all get great lines, she delivers hers best!

If anyone out there is a Charlton Heston fan I'd better apologise in advance because I'm probably going to make mention of his total lack of charisma and talent in this film far more than he really deserves. (In fact, we watched the really-not-very-good-but-still-fun Wayne's World 2 the other night and he impressed me more in his 30 second cameo there than he did in two and a half hours here).

Heston (and those two other films above) aside there is actually a lot more going for this film than I had remembered and that history generally gives it credit for.

One of these two is one of my favourite screen actors.
The other one is Charlton Heston.

Firstly, the thing that most people remember about it. James Stewart is never seen out of clown make-up (except in a photograph) and is brilliant throughout, playing comedy and drama with ease. A shocking omission that he wasn't nominated for Supporting Actor.

Secondly, apart from Jimmy, the best written and best acted characters in the film are the women. There are three strong, kick-ass women played by strong and fiesty actresses who also manage to mix up the comedy and drama (and circus skills) really well - Dorothy Lamour and Gloria Grahame do a better job than Betty Hutton in my opinion, but they are all really good. (The other lead actor is Cornel Wilde as Hutton's rival trapeze artist. Who I almost forgot to mention, as he made very little impression on me!)

Betty and Gloria mooning over Heston whilst wiping
the floor with him in the acting stakes.

The third great thing about the film is how it showcases the circus. Parts of the film act almost as a behind-the-scenes documentary (which is fascinating in itself), other parts are basically film footage of the actual performances - some spectacular, some weirdly compelling, others horribly dated. And this means that many of those performers got their only chance to be preserved on film to be watched again in 2017! There are many good reasons why the circus is not what it used to be, but it's good to have a record of what it was. And who better than Cecil B de Mille to film it all.

Bob and Bing - three seconds on screen and
they still manage to out-act Heston!

I've got to this point and realised that I haven't really mentioned the plot at all. That's probably because you could probably guess most of it without watching it. There's the "circus under threat, got to bring the crowds in or they'll shut us down" strand, that weaves in with the "love triangle" strand (which has a few extra angles in it for good measure), along with the "who is the real star" storyline that you find in all backstage musicals and a few different versions of the "dodgy dealings, wrong side of the law" trope (one version done much better than the other!). All tied up with a disaster sequence in the final reel. CBdM threw the lot at this thing - maybe that's why  I remembered it being much longer than it is!

Having said all this, we both actually rather enjoyed The Greatest Show On Earth. I've seen High Noon a couple of times, I've seen Singin In The Rain more times than is probably healthy - but I wouldn't have seen this one if it hadn't won the Oscar. Which almost lets it off the hook!