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.

God awful script handicapped further by non-acting.

Best line was (maybe paraphrasing, I'm not about to rewatch the thing) "If he had any teeth I'd knock 'em out." The rest of dialogue is just plain bad.

The actors seem to be wishing they were somewhere else.

Even the animals seemed embarrassed to be seen in this turkey.

Only redeemed (partially) by some fairly exciting wild animal acts featuring Clyde Beatty.

In some ways this is s standard "formula" mystery. Yet it's a very interesting and off beat film in other respects. A young Mickey Spillane; looking like a near clone of Sean Penn; plays himself as a rather inept detective.

The action takes place in the real Clyde Beatty Circus, where a homicidal maniac is on the loose. Clyde Beatty, who also plays himself, was perhaps the most skilled animal trainer of all time and in the 40s and 50s ran his own circus, a serious competitor to Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey. The best parts of the film (at least from my perspective) were closeups of him performing with lions and tigers, often several at a time. You can actually see the highly specific and technical body poses and behaviors he uses to control multiple animals that would love to tear him to pieces. A fascinating peek into the psyches of large carnivores.

Entertaining and quite out of the ordinary.

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.

I am not crazy about "Circus" Movies - As a child I was taken to Barnum and Bailey's "Three Ring Circus" and the seats were so high up and far away that I did not understand any of the activities going on. All I remember is a guy riding a bicycle that happened to be about 200 feet in the air. Maybe I am wrong about the hight, I was only 3 feet high myself: To me he was very high in the air. Unfortunately I was not excited about the experience, and shortly after, circuses changed radically from this image we are presented with in this films and other films like "Trapeze," "The Greatest Show on Earth," "The Flying Fontaine's" etc.

Maybe if I had been taken to a Clyde Beatty circus I would have felt differently. I did not see Barnum under any "Big Top" or any other kind of tent... The circus I was taken to was given in a large outside stadium: So as a child I never experienced that intimacy of the center ring, and after that I just never had the interest in the circus that most kids had at that time.

The actual star of this film is of course Clyde Beatty's circus: Do not be mistaken, all of the other things in this film are an excuse for this film to exist. And so, we have things like Pat O'Brien as the Manager of the Circus, "Twitchy" the drunk, O'Malley the obsessed murderer, and a thin plot of insanity, obsession, revenge, and detection: Enter Mike Hammer/Mickey Spillane.

Now as far as the performance of the main star of the film: I really do wish I had been brought to this circus instead of Barnum. I was entirely captivated by the acts that are shown. Clyde Beatty, who I remember from several films made in Africa, was a master, and I never knew that the iconic image of the Lion-Tamer, seen in cartoons and parodies and pictures and just about everywhere: That man with the chair in one hand and the whip in the other is based on Beatty. Someone mentioned that he had to shake himself to get an expression into the camera: I think that makes his character, which is himself, more believable.

Spillane is playing himself and not Hammer: Which is interesting because in one short scene where Spillane confronts O'Malley, O'Maley is calling Spillane "Mike" - I think perhaps the Mike Hammer character was going to be used, but had to be changed to Spillane himself for some reason. I think he is better in this flick than in "The Girl Hunters" - It says here that Jack Stang who appears also as himself is the detective on which Spillane based Hammer. When the two are together in a scene, the conversation flows like good 12 year old Scotch, it just seems natural. Most of Spillane lines and scenes are poses and one-liners, so there is not much for him to do: The main acting is left to the O'Malley character and the St. Dennis characters and O'Brien, who is great in this, even at his age.

This film follows the form: An introduction shows O'Malley's escape from the looney bin and threat to Beatty is set up. Then "The Circus Rolls Into Town" and they actually roll into town on a train, like circuses used to do until the late 50's.

Much of the first half hour of this film is establishing The Circus, and as I stated twice now, Beatty had a great circus: I wish I could have seen it. If anything, this film is an important documentary of the Clyde Beatty Circus.

As the detective story works it's way into the film, there are less and less "cuts" into regular circus life- There are about 15 minutes of Vignettes establishing the different people in the circus, what they are doing, and inserted into the vignettes are short flashes of the oncoming detective story, as if to say "Yes, this is a detective flick, here: Chew on this until we get to it" I have to say that this film comes together rather well. It's swell! Circus buffs will appreciate the circus aspect of this film, and Hammer buffs might like Spillane's bumbling about. Surprisingly, Paul Fix had a hand in the script: People might recognize him as the second doctor of the USS Enterprise, as seen in the Star Trek episode "Where No Man has None Before" (The first doctor was John Hoyt in "The Cage"). The final significant item is that this is one of John Wayne's "BatJac" films. Well, "The Dukes" Signature on this, just goes to show: Circus + Clyde Beatty + Mickey Spillane = Almost comical story in the unusualness of it's elements. Which is why I liked it... A lot.