El circo del terror

Although William A. Wellman took over the direction about halfway through, Ring of Fear (1954) offers middling entertainment at best. It's a "Hand me another shot of the same crowd" movie in which the premier pleasures are Sean McClory's charismatic performance as the maniacal ringmaster, and the circus acts themselves. But although these latter acts would seem a natural for CinemaScope, they are not as prominently featured as we would wish. We do see a lot of hardboiled crime writer Mickey Spillane though, and even more of Clyde Beatty, who is not slow to advertise himself. In the credits and the first few minutes of the film, his name is prominently displayed 28 times. Despite Beatty's fearless big cat taming, he is out-acted by less grand-standing members of the troupe, particularly Emmett Lynn and Pat O'Brien. Marian Carr makes a delectable heroine.

Ring of Fear (1954)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Weird blend of action and horror as a maniac gets loose in Clyde Beatty's circus and soon bodies are starting to pile up so the manager (Pat O'Brien) calls in writer Mickey Spillane to solve the case. Both Beatty and Spillane play themselves and both give an equally bad performance, which I guess is to be expected. Spillane is really, really bad but at least he gave us some great stories in his real job. The film's only real highlights are the scenes with Beatty trying to tame a wild lion. These scenes here are pretty exciting but they work against the so called mystery that's suppose to be going on and at times it seems the mystery is completely forgotten about. O'Brien comes off pretty good but he's not given a lot to do. The 2.55:1 aspect ratio makes for some good circus scenes but for the most part this thing is dead on arrival.

After Cecil B. DeMille's extravaganza, The Greatest Show On Earth came out, he showed Charlton Heston a review from a paper and told him it was the greatest review he will ever have as an actor. The reviewer remarked at what a great performance DeMille got out of the circus boss. Of course Charlton Heston wasn't CHARLTON HESTON back then.

What John Wayne and partner Robert Fellows did instead of getting actors hired a couple of real people to play themselves, Clyde Beatty and Mickey Spillane. Good thing these two did not attempt to create a character and just played themselves.

Clyde Beatty, jungle cat trainer extraordinaire, just isn't and actor. The poor man looked very embarrassed indeed. My guess is that he wanted to publicize his circus in the way that Ringling Brothers had their circus publicized by DeMille. I'm sure that is the genesis of Ring of Fear. Beatty had played himself before in the Abbott&Costello film Africa Screams. There like here his dialog was kept to a minimum.

When you've got a string of unexplained accidents at the circus, what do you do, but hire a mystery writer to solve the crime. That's what Beatty does, his circus boss played by Pat O'Brien gets Mickey Spillane obviously thinking he's really Mike Hammer. Fortunately what Spillane does is get a real detective to do the actual work.

Like The Greatest Show on Earth, Ring of Fear has a psychotic doing all these dastardly deeds. Sean McClory steps into the able psychotic shoes of Lyle Bettger. Bettger's psychosis however in the other film was only part of that plot. Here the suspense is killed rather early when you know right away that McClory is the bad guy.

In his memoirs The Wind at my Back, Pat O'Brien took time to thank John Wayne for this part. His career was in doldrums at the time and O'Brien was grateful for the part. He certainly out acted his two co-stars.

The circus acts are entertaining, they're the best part of Ring of Fear. John Wayne later on appeared in a circus film of his own, Circus World, that director/writer James Edward Grant did the script for him. That Cinerama epic, unfortunately ran into an unforeseen problem.

The re-release of The Greatest Show On Earth.

While the plot/acting/script was only mediocre, the footage of the actual Clyde Beatty Circus & its performers make this a better than average film. It is a very enjoyable film for this reason alone. The acting was not all that bad, just not top-grade. It is in color & cinemascope...rare for such low budget pictures. Rent it, I think you'll like it even if you never saw a circus under "the Big Top". As a child in the '40's, I got to see this circus many times, along with Barnum & Bailey's, so this brought back many fond childhood memories. What kid didn't want to be a lion tamer? 40 yrs later, I did get to try my hand at it...what a thrill even though I had too much fear of the cats to be successful...only did it twice. I did work several seasons with circuses as a trick shot, bullwhip & knife throwing artist...memories I will carry to my grave.

While RING OF FEAR may not qualify for Best Film of the Year (as DeMille's circus epic did), it is a colorful and fast moving story of life under the big circus tent, whereby an ex-employee returns to his old job seeking vengeance on none other than CLYDE BEATTY and intent on evening the score for an ex-girlfriend who married another man (JOHN BROMFIELD). Beatty's lion-taming act is fascinating to watch.

The film's main purpose seems to be in showcasing the circus life, the roustabouts setting up the tents, the training of wild animals (and I do mean wild), the petty arguments among the trapeze artists and other performers, and all of it supervised by a caustic manager (PAT O'BRIEN) in the sort of brassy wise-guy role he could have performed in his sleep. For added interest, there's a laid-back performance from MICKEY SPILLANE as himself, helping O'Brien solve the case of the psychopath bent on murderous revenge, who is hiding out in the traveling circus.

SEAN McCLORY is guilty of overacting in many a scene but he does create a fascinating offbeat character as the madman who has escaped from confinement and is intent on revenge. The last fifteen minutes of the film contain more suspense and excitement than deMille managed to do in his lengthy, pretentious Oscar-winning epic THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.

Summing up: Not masterpiece theater as far as acting and script are concerned, but interesting enough as a suspense tale played against a colorful circus background, to maintain a reasonable amount of interest.