The Greatest Show on Earth

Even though I watched this as part of my Best Picture winner watch quest, I'm not rating these by whether they deserved to win. All the Best Picture winners I watch are being rated and reviewed like any other movie: on its merits as a movie. And on those merits, I cannot say this is among the worst Best Picture winners. I've seen far worse. I've seen movies that offend me, that enrage me, that insult my intelligence. The Greatest Show On Earth does none of those. It was, however, the most empty movie on the list so far. To call this movie shallow would be an insult to teaspoons. I have seen richer stories in commercials. Where's Waldo has a deeper character arc. Because The Greatest Show On Earth is barely a movie. It struggles to achieve having the minimum necessary plot on which to drape its proceedings, and that structure is a rusty painter's scaffolding with no stabilizers. Claiming this movie has a plot because there are characters and things happen is like claiming a Snickers bar has healthful content because of the protein in the peanuts. It gets around to the "plot" when it feels like it, and only enough to keep things moving forward. There's a love triangle, and some bitter ex-employees, and a character on the run from the law hiding out in the circus staff, but these are merely vessels carried on the movie's conveyor belt to further one goal: the circus is awesome. And The Greatest Show On Earth will remind you of that fact, ad nauseum, whether you like it or not, and it will illustrate it in so many ways. I will give Cecil B. DeMille this, he manages to capture the spectacle and present it in so many ways, and so thoroughly. Several variations of trapeze acts? Clown antics? Musical numbers and costumed parades? Oh, it's all here, and I'd say to the point of excess, but we left excess several miles back. The movie has long been criticized as a glorified advertisement for the circus, and while I can't prove that one way or the other, I have absolutely no intentions of attempting to dispel that notion. If one were so inclined, one could cut out seven minutes of footage and turn it into some reel to show kids on a school day when a sub has to fill in for the full time teacher; a day at the circus, perhaps, or if a more industrious, educational short was wanted, there's plenty of footage into setting up the circus too. It is not an exaggeration to estimate this movie's ratio of plot-driven footage versus circus performances to be 50/50, and I'd put bet good money that's low. I'd talk about the acting here, but there's no point. Charlton Heston, Jimmy Stewart, Gloria Grahame, Betty Hutton, and the rest are here in name only. They are not called upon to imbue their characters with any depth or humanity. Packages on a UPS truck have more agency. Heston's natural gruffness doesn't give his character any unique traits, because the character couldn't have unique traits if they were stapled to his forehead. Even Jimmy Stewart's natural boyish charm is smothered under layers of clown make-up. Cecil B. DeMille was known as the director of spectacle, and in this regard, The Greatest Show On Earth does succeed. The cinematography is wonderful, and he captures the scope of what made the circus a destination attraction for families back in the day. And it's clear that that was the mandate here. I'm not going to get mad at The Greatest Show On Earth for not doing something DeMille never had any intention of doing for his movie. But that doesn't excuse the fact that, in choosing that path, the result is a movie that lasts two and a half hours and has enough content to fill a quarter of that, and you don't even get the benefit of the peanuts and cotton candy. The Greatest Show On Earth is not just a triumph of spectacle over storytelling, it is spectacle at all costs, and storytelling only when absolutely necessary.