O Grande Circo

"The Big Circus" is going to be a hard film for me to like. After all, the other three big circus spectaculars I've seen ("The Greatest Show on Earth", "Billy Rose's Jumbo" and "Circus World") were incredibly dull films. The only circus-themed films I can recall enjoying were comedies and so I am questioning now why I bothered to watch "The Big Circus"...perhaps I am just a glutton for punishment.

When the film begins, Hank Whirling (Victor Mature) is trying to arrange for a loan to keep his circus afloat. However, the bank is hesitant to make the loan and come up with an idea. Instead of just loaning the money, they'll send one of their people, Randy (Red Buttons), to go hang out with the circus for a few weeks to see if it really is worth the money. In addition, they assign a press agent, Helen (Rhonda Fleming) to go along as well and see if she can do anything to increase business and make the circus more profitable. Not surprisingly, Whirling is not the least bit thrilled by this but since he really has no other choice he accepts the proposition. Through the course of the film, lots of problems pop up but as the saying goes "The Show Must Go On!". But some of these problems might not be accidents...someone might just be deliberately sabotaging the circus!

"The Big Circus" is a bit different from the other three circus films I already mentioned. It seems a tiny bit smaller in scope and the actors tend to be more second-tier in stature. This is NOT necessarily a bad thing as the film seems to rest less on big names and concentrates a little more on entertaining the audience with a script that is at least modesty interesting and entertaining. I didn't love the film but found it kept my interest much more than the other circus epics and is actually worth seeing. I especially liked learning the identity of the saboteur...a really, really interesting choice!

C'mon, where else are you going to find a cast like this - at these prices, at least? It may not have the benefit of a DeMille budget, but this little gem succeeds where that director's "The Greatest Show On Earth" fails.

In place of DeMille's overblown hokum (which took itself too seriously to the point of campiness), THE BIG CIRCUS is earnest, lean and tightly paced, with no illusions that it's anything other than what it is: a collection of all the admittedly cliché elements that belong in a big-top thriller: sabotage by a rival, a lion on the loose, a killer in their midst, a fire, a train wreck and even a walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope!

Seasoned pros Victor Mature, Gilbert Roland, Red Buttons and Rhonda Fleming give it their all without going overboard, Vincent Price and Peter Lorre appear appropriately suspicious for those wondering if type-casting will reveal one of them as the villain, David Nelson is on hand doing some of his own trapeze work and even Steve Allen gets into the act!

Don't look for import, just sit back and enjoy the ride (and forgive the cheesy matte work on the Niagara sequence; at least they sprang for CinemaScope).

The Big Circus I found a decent movie. It is a worthy attempt, but it isn't quite the masterpiece it yearned to be. No matter how many flaws there are, it is an entertaining and undervalued movie. While it is hindered by the fact that it is rather low budget, so the sets and technical aspects(ie. sound) weren't as up to scratch as they could have been, however, the costumes and photography are very nice and extraordinarily colourful. The plot, like a whodunit at a circus, while slow to start with, is clever and reaches to a tense ending where I admit I was surprised at the identity of the culprit. The trapeze scenes were very well choreographed, and the highlight was the tightrope walking scene with Zach, I really felt the desperation and anguish in his face. The music is wonderful too,the script is acceptable and the performances are above decent. Victor Mature, who I think can act, is a little world-weary and is disappointingly one note at times but wonderfully over the top in other parts of the film. Rhonda Fleming is lovely as the female lead. However they are both overshadowed by a brilliant supporting cast including Red Buttons, Gilbert Roland, Kathryn Grant, Vincent Price and Peter Lorre. All in all, not a masterpiece, but I do think despite its flaws that the Big Circus is undervalued. 8/10 Bethany Cox

"The Big Circus," from 1959 is one of those spectacles in color that begged to be seen on a big screen, the type of film intended to lure audiences from their TV sets back into the movie theater.

It's a predictable story. Henry Whirling, the owner of the Whirling Circus (Victor Mature) gets a loan from a bank, but an accountant (Red Buttons) is sent along to watch the investment. He hires a publicist (Rhonda Fleming), though Whirling objects strenuously. Meanwhile, a rival circus is trying to sabotage Whirling's efforts to get into the black.

The film also stars Vincent Price as the ringleader, Gilbert Roland as the aerialist Colino, Peter Lorre as a Skeets the clown, David Nelson, a member of the high wire act, and Kathryn Grant. Grant plays Mature's sister -- they are twenty years apart, but it's within the realm of possibility.

With more attention paid to the care of animals today, I doubt you'd see multi-colored elephants, which really bothered me.

Some interesting aerial routines, a little suspense, and need I say that Red Buttons takes Skeets the Clown's place at one point.

This is before CGI and computers, so the process shot of Colino walking a wire at a national landmark is lousy.

The acting is nothing special. The best actors like Lorre and Price have smaller roles. Victor Mature was a serviceable leading man. Very, very few men in Hollywood were handsome throughout their lives; I think Gilbert Roland was a notable exception. He's quite effective in a dramatic role.

All in all, entertaining.

Unfortunately for The Big Circus, The Greatest Show On Earth by Cecil B. DeMille set the standard for circus films that will be pretty hard to match. One hasn't come out in many years now, probably the market isn't there. Pity too, in this age of computer graphics, the potential to out DeMille DeMille is there.

This film can still stand on its own however as good entertainment. As in The Grestest Show On Earth, someone is out trying to sabotage the circus. The villain here isn't doing it for some nefarious scheme to enrich, it's a very psychologically disturbed individual who is not unmasked until the very end.

The leads here are Victor Mature in the role of circus boss and he's got financial troubles. Working to help straighten out the circus's finances are Rhonda Fleming and Red Buttons. Both aren't quite used to the culture of the circus, but Vic works the old heavy lidded charm and he's got a sister in Kathryn Crosby who brings the circus out in banker Buttons.

In The Greatest Show on Earth James Stewart took a supporting role as a clown because he always wanted to play one. Peter Lorre departs from his usual villainy to play a similar kind of clown, kind of a father confessor to the show.

But my favorite in the film is Gilbert Roland. He plays the patriarch of a high wire act and the high point of the film is his walk across Niagara Falls as a publicity stunt for the financially strapped show. Roland is under a lot of pressure, his wife, Adele Mara, having been the only fatality in a planned train wreck.

In fact The Big Circus took so much from The Greatest Show on Earth like the train wreck and other things that producer/director Irwin Allen was rightly criticized for a lack of originality. It seems he was just trying he could do the same things on the screen better than DeMille.

Nevertheless The Big Circus is a fine film on its own, entertaining and colorful for children of all ages.