The Greatest Show on Earth

Starring:Lillian Albertson, Lyle Bettger, Robert Carson, Antoinette Concello, Cucciola, Julia Faye, Tuffy Genders, Gloria Grahame, Charlton Heston, Betty Hutton, John Kellogg, Emmett Kelly, Dorothy Lamour, John Ringling North, John Ridgely, Lawrence Tierney, Frank Wilcox, Henry Wilcoxon, Cornel Wilde
Studio: Paramount
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com essential video

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

Customer Reviews:

Take Me Out To The Circus.......2007-04-05

Cecil de Mille's THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH won an Oscar for best picture in 1952. While it may not be the greatest movie ever made, it certainly made me want to see a real live circus again, no small feat. The stunts are both funny and fantastic, the animals majestic, the circus comraderie feels genuine, and you can practicallly smell the cotton candy. Yes, there is a plot here too. A very young Charlton Heston is the circus manager who must ride herd on everyone. Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde play trapeze artists; Jimmy Stewart is a clown with a past. There is a romantic triangle as well as good guys triumphing over the villains. Almost everyone-- but not quite-- winds up happy in the end.

You should certainly see-- if you never have before-- this movie but don't take it too seriously. As they say, they don't make movies like this anymore.

Greatest Show on Earth.......2007-03-27

Received this DVD in a timely manner. I haven't played it yet, but it looks to be in excellent condition.

Brassy Big Top Corn: Silly But Entertaining.......2007-03-14

Every one was shocked when THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH won Oscars for Best Motion Picture and Best Screenplay; there was nothing about the film that could be considered "great art." At the same time, however, SHOW was a lot of fun, and certainly audiences of the day flocked to it, making it the single biggest grossing film of 1952.

The story is purple-prose soap opera. Circus manager Brad Braden (Charleton Heston) is doing a balancing act between rival arielist stars Sebastian (Cornel Wilde) and Holly (Betty Hutton)--the later of whom is torn in her affections between the two. Add in a lovely but common show girl (Dorothy Lamour), a jealous elephant trainer (Lyle Bettger), the object of his affections (Gloria Graham), a clown with a mysterious past (Jimmy Stewart), high wire accidents, and a train wreck--all mixed well by Cecil B. DeMille's eye for larger-than-life spectacle. The result is brassy, silly, corny, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Seen today, the big attraction here is the chance to see the circus when it was still traveling by rail and performing under "the big top." Filmed with the cooperation of Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey, SHOW allows us to see what was involved in organizing the lavish show that was the circus in the 1950s, a world filled with roustabouts, elephants, barkers, peanut vendors, acrobats, and all the rest. One of the more interesting aspects of this is Emmett Kelly, one of America's greatest clowns, who appears throughout the film as himself.

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH is lots of flash and dazzle, a little song and dance, Charleton Heston in his first major role, Betty Hutton in one of her final films (she did most of her own stunt work), and lots of corny charm. It might not really be the "greatest" show on earth, but it is very picturesque. The film isn't restored, but it isn't in bad condition; sadly, there are no bonuses at all.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

An entertaining picture, just not the Best Picture.......2007-02-24

"The Greatest Show on Earth" is a good movie and it's entertaining enough, it's just not an Oscar-winning calibre movie. As other reviewers have noted, this film was probably given its Best Picture Oscar as a kind of life-time achievement award to Cecil B. DeMille. It wasn't that the Academy felt that they had unjustly snubbed DeMille in the past for any specific film, it was just that he had always made those kind of epic cast-of-thousands types of pictures that drew in the audiences but that rarely won Oscars. Plus, a large body of DeMille's work had been done before the Academy Awards even came into existence in 1927. The whole thing seems especially unjust when you look at the competition that year. Two of the other nominees - "High Noon" and "The Quiet Man" are considered unique and classic to this day. Also, there is a film in the top 10 of AFI Best Films from that year that didn't even get nominated for best picture - Singin' in the Rain - which is arguably the best musical film ever made. It's rather ironic that just four years later the Academy could have probably awarded DeMille more legitimately when he made his last movie, the epic "The Ten Commandments", in 1956.

This movie is basically a documentary on how the Ringling Brothers circus operated in the early 50's, and large chunks of film are taken up showing how the Big Top was assembled, the manual labor involved, how the entire circus - including wild animals - was transported via rail, and basically just all of the hard work that went on behind the scenes. There is also a pretty spectacular scene near the end of the film involving the two trains as they are transporting the circus from one town to another. I say "was" because the circus as it is portrayed in this movie closed down and ceased to exist in 1956. The truth is that the Ringling Brothers circus never fully recovered financially from the double whammy of the Great Depression and a fatal fire that killed over 100 people in Hartford, Connecticut in 1944 and thus was in the process of failing even when this movie was made. The plot of the movie is very thin, the main thread being an uninspired love triangle involving the two stars of the trapeze act, Holly and the Great Sebastion, played by Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde respectively, and the managing boss of the traveling show, Brad Braden, played by Charleton Heston. The subplots include an elephant trainer who is obsessed over a girl in the show who doesn't care for him, some small-time mobsters whose crooked games get thrown off the lot by Brad, and "Buttons" the clown, played by Jimmy Stewart, who never takes off his makeup and who seems to have a mysterious past. All of these plot lines are just there to hold the documentary part of the film together and also as a backdrop for all of the circus acts that are numerous and quite spectacular to behold, especially the acrobatic acts. Quite honestly, one-fourth into the movie you can see the outcome of the dramatic portion of the movie coming at you from a mile away. This makes the fact that this movie won Best Motion Picture Screenplay an even odder decision than the Best Picture award.

There is some interesting trivia involving the film. Famous clown Emmett Kelly can be seen at one point in the film without makeup - a fact that Mr. Kelly was not happy about. Also, Dorothy Lamour has a supporting role in this film, and during one of her musical performances in the show the camera pans to the audience -as it often does in this film - but this time you get a brief glimpse of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope enjoying the show. The inside joke here is that Lamour, Crosby, and Hope were the costars of the popular series of "Road to ..." movies of the 40's and 50's. The strangest thing about the DVD itself is that there are absolutely no extras included. Since many films include "Making of" extras on their DVD's, even if they are decades old since some stock footage usually remains somewhere, how strange that a movie that is basically a cover for a documentary doesn't do the same.

The Greatest Show On Earth.......2007-02-18

This movie is a classic and has all the best actors in it. This movie is circus with excitement,drama and more. Good movie to see.

Hip Hop Uncensored, Vol. 5: Greatest Show on Earth

Average customer rating:

Horrible

Hip Hop Uncensored, Vol. 5: Greatest Show on Earth
Starring: Various Artists
Manufacturer: Nutz
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Rap & Hip-Hop | Styles | Music

General | Music Video & Concerts | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $9.99 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( H ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Hardware: Hip Hop, Vol. 1
Hip Hop Uncensored, Vol. 6: Ready to Sign
Booty 101: The Forbidden Dances
Hip Hop Uncensored, Vol. 2: Real Hip Hop
Hip-Hop Honeys: Brazil Boom Boom

ASIN: B00008V2W1
Release Date: 2007-01-16

Description

This fifth (and probably final) installment of the Hip Hop Uncensored series brings some of the series' hottest never-before-seen material and features superstars Ja Rule, Ashanti, 50 Cent, Wutang, Redman, DJ Enuff, MOP, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, lots more; also includes hidden bonus footage

Customer Reviews:

Horrible.......2007-01-19

This video was worthless. A waste of money. I dont even know why it was uncensored. They showed nothing but concerts. This was bad

Eddy Merckx: La Course en Tete/The Greatest Show on Earth

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Eddy Merckx: La Course en Tete/The Greatest Show on Earth

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000G5TFF0

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The Greatest Tractor Show on Earth Ever
Starring: Greatest Tractor Show on Earth Ever
Manufacturer: Arts Magic
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

Product Description

Cheffin's Tractor Millennium, which we claim as the greatest tractor event ever to have been put together, was two and a half years in the making. Altogether 1958 tractors turned up, and if you include the models, then there were over 2,000 entrants. To commemorate the new millennium, enthusiasts from 23 countries turned up to view tractors, tractors, and more tractors. These include John Deere, Marshall, Fordson, Doe and Caterpillar all taking part in the great dynamometer horsepower contest, which sees modern tractors going head to head with vintage machines. Now all can experience the thrills of that day.

The Greatest Show on Earth: The 134th Ed. Souvenir DVD - Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey

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The Greatest Show on Earth: The 134th Ed. Souvenir DVD - Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey

Manufacturer: Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Productions
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

DVDs Under $14.99 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

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The Greatest Show on Earth

Product Features:

Wonderful souvenir of the greatest circus ever!

ASIN: B000G1OD5Q

Product Description

Highlights & High Jinks from "The 134th Edition Souvenir DVD of the Greatest Show On Earth: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey". Bonus features: behind the scenes look at history; meet the women of the circus; Rock and roll with the new Elephan Club; Learn about our family of pachyderms

Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey 134th Edition Souvenir DVD

Average customer rating:

Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey 134th Edition Souvenir DVD

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Close Captioned.
NTSC.

ASIN: B000QH2DT8

Product Description

Hop the high wire with Crazy Wilson, sing along with our ringmaster, dance with Sylvia Zerbini and her horses, laugh out loud with the Prince of Laughter, and step into the ring with ferocious lions. Also behind the scenes look at the circus train. Learn about the pachyderm family and their latest addition.

The Wrath Of God - Fire Under The Big Top (History Channel)

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The Wrath Of God - Fire Under The Big Top (History Channel)

Manufacturer: A&E Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( W ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

The Greatest Show on Earth

ASIN: B000FKP0OQ
Release Date: 2006-05-02

Description

When Ringling Brothers traveled to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1944, patrons were unaware that the circus tent had been waterproofed with a highly flammable substance. We'll review rare footage that captured the pandemonium that ensued when the tent erupted in flames, killing 168 people, including an unidentified young girl.

Greatest Show on Earth - 135th Souvenir Edition DVD

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Greatest Show on Earth - 135th Souvenir Edition DVD

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

Ringling Bros & Barnum & Bailer

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