Delayed Reaction: The Greatest Show on Earth

Premise: The drama and pageantry of a tumultuous season for the circus.

 

There is such a thing as taking a Best Picture win by force: making a movie so big that is simply has to win. We forget this, because it hasn't happened much lately. The last movie to really do it was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Titanic before that. Schindler's List before that. They almost seemed designed to take an Oscar season by storm. Some don't age as well. We sure don't talk about Gandhi or Out of Africa much anymore. The Greatest Show on Earth is certainly one of these movies as well. It's often cited as among the worst Best Picture winners ever. I've now seen a lot of the Best Picture winners (only 10 left, by my count), and this is far from my least favorite of them. It is perhaps the most bloated and frivolous though. It's 2.5 hours that plays like 3. It's silly in an Old Hollywood way. I struggled to refrain from laughing as the climactic emergency required everyone to dramatically refer to Buttons the clown over and over again. The movie certainly sags, and the drama is overwrought.

 

Still, I get it. The movie is undeniably huge. It uses hordes of actual circus acts. Many of the actors were trained to perform their acts. Those are real lions and such. Hundreds of extras were called in. I'll admit, despite how indifferent I was throughout most of the movie, the triumphant success of the circus at the end stirred me. This is definitely a movie I can see exciting people in a movie theater, on a big screen, only to never think about it again or watch at home.

 

It's hard to track "Oscar buzz" back in 1952. The awards season was much different in those days. But, I have to wonder if some of the driving force for this win was to get Cecille B. DeMille an Oscar. His Best Picture win as a producer of this film ended up being his only competitive Oscar. He was in his fifth decade as a Hollywood power player at that point. He's one of the giants of American film history. Is The Greatest Show on Earth his The Departed? Obviously, in hindsight, the Academy should've instead waited four years to give Best Picture to what ended up being the final film he directed, The Ten Commandments. This would've bumped Around the World in 80 Days out. And who would've missed that? At the time though, I'm sure voters were worried this would be the last time they had a chance to finally give DeMille an Oscar.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend