Billy Rose's Jumbo

The MGM musical circus had left Culver City a few years earlier by the time the studio decided to film this 1930s stage extravaganza. The result is bright and competent enough (and it retains most of the wonderful Rodgers & Hart songs), but ten years earlier the Arthur Freed Unit would have sharpened up the book, included a lot more dancing and had a superior leading man (Stephen Boyd is a disaster in this movie). Doris Day sings the standards very well, and - stealing the film - Jimmy Durante (who gives a glorious rendition of "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World") and Martha Raye are memorable in support.

From the circus scenes to those wonderful musical numbers (My Romance, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, This Can't Be Love) this just shines. Day and Boyd may be a little old to play girl and boy falling in love but somehow it works. She is terrific as always, he's a damn good singer, and of course with Jimmy Durante, Martha Raye and an elephant how could it fail? One or two sections drag a bit but in the main this is exceptionally good stuff. Nice syrupy stuff if you're in the mood with some laughs along the way.

Doris Day's final musical role was in Jumbo which finally came to the screen almost 30 years after it played at the legendary Hippodrome Theater for 233 performances in 1935. Henceforth all of Doris's films would be screen comedies in which she may have sung a ditty or two in the film or over the title credits. But Jumbo was her last true musical.

Jumbo was directed by Charles Walters an old hand at musicals, his best known probably being High Society. But Walters had an even older hand working with him in Busby Berkeley. His touch is obvious as the second unit director in some of the musical numbers. Jumbo marked Berkeley farewell screen credit.

The plot is little changed from the 1935 show. Jimmy Durante who was repeating his role from the original Broadway cast is Pop Wonder a kindly circus owner who owes everyone in a 20 mile radius because of his gambling problem. He's the despair of his daughter Doris Day and Martha Raye who does a crystal ball act on the sideshow who Durante's been carrying a long term courtship of.

His show is in desperate straights with acts quitting him left and right, Doris is fulfilling several acts and jobs on the show, from high wire work to clown. One day handsome and muscular Stephen Boyd comes looking for a job. He seems like the answer to a prayer, but it turns out he's the son of rival circus owner Dean Jagger and doing a little espionage for the old man.

Durante's show has one real asset, the legendary circus elephant Jumbo whom as we know was the real life main attraction of Barnum&Bailey's real life circus in the 19th century. It's that which Jagger means to have.

Of course the boy/girl thing as usual gets in the way with Day and Boyd. Their romance is played out under the big top to the strains of one of Rodgers&Hart's best scores. Made even better by the addition of This Can't Be Love from The Boys From Syracuse.

So many good songs by Rodgers and Hart you hardly know where to begin. Doris gets to sing My Romance, This Can't Be Love, and one of the most plaintive ballads of heartbreak ever written, Little Girl Blue. Stephen Boyd if he wasn't dubbed, had a nice singing voice and does a good job on The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, with an obbligato done by Jimmy Durante.

I've seen stills of the technically off Broadway production of the original cast in 1935. With all the circus acts, no conventional Broadway Theater could have possibly housed this show. The Hippodrome which was located on Sixth Avenue and 43rd Street has been gone since before World War II, Jumbo was the last show of any kind done there. I wish I could have seen it live.

My guess is that producer Billy Rose drove a hard bargain in getting just compensation for the screen rights. It's why Jumbo took so long to come to the screen. Fortunately it made it there just as musicals were being phased out. I'm sure Rose's name in the title was another bit of vanity for him to get the show to the screen.

Despite what I consider an almost surreal ending, Jumbo still delights musical and circus fans of all ages and will continue to do so. You can never go wrong with a musical by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.

The usual circus fun: a determinedly old-fashioned big-top opus with animals, parades, high-wire attractions, songs by Rodgers & Hart. Doris Day manages a struggling traveling circus in the early 1900s, while pop Jimmy Durante gambles away their earnings and show-performer Martha Raye halfheartedly attempts to get Durante down the aisle. Ever-earnest Stephen Boyd shows up in need of a job, and quickly gets Day's heart racing, before it's revealed he's the son of their chief rival--and what he's really after is star-attraction Jumbo the Elephant! Good-looking hokum, if your tastes run to squeaky-clean backlot romps. Too bad the scenarists skimp on any colorful glimpses of the eccentric carny lifestyle (what drives these people so hard anyway?). In the 1960s, Doris Day mainly concentrated on her series of popular bedroom comedies; this effort (her last musical) broke up her routine and she's delightful as always. The piqued direction is by Charles Walters, who has his work bolstered a bit by Busby Berkeley, overseeing the circus sequences. **1/2 from ****

In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the traveling The Wonder Circus has the greatest attraction the elephant Jumbo and is full of debts. The owner, Anthony 'Pop' Wonder (Jimmy Durante), works as a clown but is a gambler addicted in dice games and usually loses the box office gambling. He has been deceiving the clairvoyant Lulu (Martha Raye) for many years promising to marry her. His daughter, Kitty Wonder (Doris Day), is the trick rider and tries to negotiate with creditors and the circus performers to keep the business going on. John Noble (Dean Jagger), who owns a famous Noble Circus, wants to buy Jumbo and The Wonder Circus, but Pop refuses his offers.

When the mysterious Sam Rawlins (Stephen Boyd) asks for a job in the Wonder Circus, Kitty refuses and tells that they do not want adventurer working in their circus. But he proves to be an excellent aerialist and handy man and Pop hires him since they lost many performers due to the lack of payment. Soon Kitty falls in love with Sam, but he has a secret agenda and she does not know.

"Billy Rose's Jumbo" is a forgettable and cute musical based on a 1935 Broadway show. The silly plot is a predictable romance entwined with many songs and performances by circus performers and entertains. The work of the stunts and the edition is wonderful. Unfortunately the songs in the DVD released by Warner in Brazil do not have subtitles in a absolute lack of respect from Warner to the Brazilian costumers. Shame on you Warner! My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "A Mais Querida do Mundo" ("The Dearest in the World")