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DVD The Greatest Show on Earth
The Greatest Show on Earth is a heaping helping of flapdoodle served up by one of Hollywood's canniest entertainers: producer-director Cecil B. DeMille. This overripe melodrama purports to be life inside the Ringling Brothers Circus; maybe it's not, but the circus ought to be like this. The actors wrestling with the purple dialogue are: early-career Charlton Heston, as the tough-as-nails circus manager; Cornel Wilde and Betty Hutton as trapeze artistes; and Gloria Grahame (who won an Oscar), dangling from elephants. Best of all, James Stewart plays a clown who--for mysterious reasons--never removes his makeup. (Stewart took the supporting role simply because he'd always wanted to play a clown.) This is a fried-baloney sandwich of a movie: it ain't sophisticated, and probably isn't good for you, but once you start you can't stop. It was the box-office champ of 1952, and it shocked everybody by winning the best picture Oscar. --Robert Horton
The quality of this DVD is excellent- it WAS an Oscar winning movie. The story is slow with some campy acting by Betty Hutton but it is an excellent observation of the circus as it was in its glory years. Between the cheesy drama and slow story there is excellent documentary-type footage of the Ringling Brother Show.
Ok movie but not close to being great
Cecil B. DeMille can bring big flashy expensive movies to life and he dose it in this movie. The acting is ok but not great but mostly becouse of the bad dialoge and the early-career of most of the actors like Charlton Heston as the circus manager, then there is Betty Hutton as trapeze artistes who is the best thing about this movie then there is James Stewart who steals away allt he sence he is in as he plays a clown who--for mysterious reasons--never removes his makeup. This is not a great film but has moments that are good the best part is the last 15 minutes. James Stewert and Betty Hutton also save this movie with great acting. The movie won the best picture at the oscars.
It almost seems that "The Greatest Show on Earth" would be more highly respected today if it had not won the Best Picture Oscar in 1952; reviewers often tend to compare its value to that of other films released the same year (especially "The Quiet Man", which won Best Director for John Ford and "Singin' in the Rain" which failed to secure a Best Picture nomination at all), and find TGSOE lacking. Such criticism is patently unfair. After all, whether it won as a fluke because the other nominees split the vote, or whether the Academy voters simply went for it in a big way, it isn't TGSOE's fault that it emerged the big winner - blame the Academy! And Oscar considerations aside, it's undeniable that TGSOE is exactly what its producers and director Cecil B. DeMille intended it to be: a great big, gaudy, colorful, lavish example of traditional storytelling and old-fashioned entertainment that would delight and thrill audiences while raking in piles of money at the box-office. On those terms, the film was - and still is - a stupendous success.
Certainly the movie features the cast of a lifetime interacting with actual circus personnel in this early "Circus of the Stars". In addition to top-billed Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde (who actually performed many of their own acrobatic stunts), the players include Charlton Heston; Gloria Grahame; Dorothy Lamour; legendary clown Emmett Kelly; DeMille regulars Henry Wilcoxon and Julia Faye; Lyle Bettger; Lawrence Tierney; and, in a meaty supporting role, James Stewart. Countless big names also make cameo appearances or pop up in crowd scenes: watch for Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in the stands while "Road" series co-star Dorothy Lamour is singing; Edmond O'Brien; Hopalong Cassidy; and many more. The slim plot, concerning the behind-the-scenes operations of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, is secondary to the spectacle of the performers, animals, and roustabouts, but DeMille nonetheless throws in some torrid romance, a dash of mystery, a touch of tragedy ... and a mammoth train wreck! And all this was filmed in eye-popping three-strip Technicolor, making it a visual feast for the eyes.
The Paramount DVD offers a gorgeous film-to-video transfer that is wonderful to behold. The film is presented in its original "full-screen" aspect ratio (the widescreen CinemaScope process wouldn't make its debut for another year), and looks and sounds terrific. Highly recommended to those who enjoy star-filled extravaganzas and "old-fashioned" epic storytelling; anyone who ever dreamed of running away from home and joining the circus (and didn't most of us?) will especially enjoy this rousing entertainment.
This Mike Todd production was a star-studded, multi-million dollar extravaganza when first released in 1956. It remains enjoyable family fare, but time has somewhat dulled its shine. Still, it compares favorably to the overly long, TV mini-series starring Pierce Brosnan and Eric Idle.
Elegant David Niven plays the neurotically punctual Phileas Fogg, a British gent who is spurned on by a wager to prove he can travel around the world in 80 days. He is accompanied by his valet, played with persnickety humor by Cantinflas.
Nominated for several Academy Awards, this was written by John Farrow (Mia's dad) and S.J. Perelman, based on Jules Verne's 1873 classic. The fun part is the razzle-dazzle. Todd knew what he was doing with all those exotic locales and over 40 cameo appearances,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): David Niven DVD Release Date: Released the 18 May 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Still as potently relevant today as it was in 1937, The Life of Emile Zola is a marvelously entertaining slab of Hollywood social issue-mongering. The life of the French writer is broadly sketched in the early going, but the film settles into its groove with the Dreyfus affair: the scandalous railroading of a military captain for treason, which shook France to its foundation in the 1890s. The elderly Zola's gradual involvement in the case, climaxing with his electrifying "J'accuse!" essay and subsequent trial for libel, is the heart and soul of the picture.
Warner Bros.' version of this story, directed by William Dieterle, carries over the passion (and hokum) of the previous year's Story of Louis Pasteur. It also retains that film's leading man, Paul Muni, who turns in... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Paul Muni - Gale Sondergaard - Joseph Schildkraut Director(s): William Dieterle DVD Release Date: Released the 01 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Writer-director Robert Rossen and character actors Broderick Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge (in her film debut) took home Oscars (for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress, respectively) for this excellent adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Crawford stars as Willie Stark, a charismatic populist Southern politician (inspired by the real Louisiana Governor Huey Long) who belies his "man of the people" roots as he ruthlessly maneuvers, lies, and deals his way into the halls of power. John Ireland is his right-hand man, Jack Burden, a newsman turned political flack who hangs on to Stark's early idealism even in the face of Stark's most reprehensible acts of corruption. McCambridge is Stark's cool mistress come calculating assistant. The... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Broderick Crawford - John Ireland Director(s): Robert Rossen DVD Release Date: Released the 05 June 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Originally broadcast as a 50-minute drama on Philco Television Playhouse in 1953, Marty ensured Paddy Chayefsky's status as one of the greatest writers of television's golden age. When Chayefsky, director Delbert Mann, and actor Ernest Borgnine reunited for this 90-minute film version, the play had been polished with extra scenes, further perfecting Chayefsky's timeless study of loneliness and heartbreak. And the film, in which Borgnine excels as the single, 35-year-old "fat and ugly" butcher Marty Pilletti, received well-deserved Oscars® for Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Screenplay. Although Chayefsky's central theme is the pain of being unwanted (as felt by Marty himself as well as his elderly Aunt Catherine, who's become a burden to her married daughter), the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Ernest Borgnine - Betsy Blair Director(s): Delbert Mann DVD Release Date: Released the 19 June 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Winner of three Academy Awards including Best Picture, The Great Ziegfeld stars William Powell in a biopic "suggested by romances and incidents in the life of America's greatest showman, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr." With admirable accuracy, the film follows Ziegfeld's career from small-time sideshow barker to creator of the famous Ziegfeld Follies, the collection of singing, dancing, and comedy vaudeville acts that launched the careers of such luminaries as Fanny Brice, Ray Bolger, and Harriet Hoctor, all of whom play themselves in the film. In the title role, Powell offers a believable combination of ambition and hucksterism, and his Thin Man costar Myrna Loy makes a late appearance as his second wife, but it's large-eyed Luise Rainer who has the showier role (and won an... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): William Powell - Myrna Loy - Luise Rainer Director(s): Robert Z. Leonard DVD Release Date: Released the 03 February 2004 Usually ships within 24 hours
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