Rating: 
Summary: The Master Director Hits The Big Top
Review: Cecil B. DeMille, the master of the American Cinema Epic, after almost 4 decades as King of Hollywood had one more trump card to play: The Greatest Show On Earth! -- This multiple Oscar Winner (including Best Picture) is bigger and better than any Barnum & Baley Show. An engaging plot, brilliant Technicolor cinematography, and a masterpiece performance by Jimmy Stwart as the definitive clown. Add a pretty girl worth dying for and your Sunday Matinee at the Big Top is complete. One of Hollywood's very best!*****
Rating:
Summary: A Circus Classic
Review: DeMille's circus extravaganza, approaching its 50th year of release, remains the all-time best circus movie. Colorful, extravagant, well acted, and filled with thrilling scenes of the last traditional tented days of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, "Greatest Show" has held up marvelously through the years. A must see for all circus fans, DeMille admirers, and those curious about the blockbuster spectaculars of a Hollywood gone by.
Rating:
Summary: WHAT A SHOW.....
Review: For a Best Picture winner, this surely won on the sheer bravado of Cecil B. DeMille. The legendary director provided the real Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey circus and a bounty of stars in colorful roles for this tale of circus life and how "the show must go on" despite trauma and tragedy. Charlton Heston stars as Brad, the control-focused circus manager with an over-bubbly Betty Hutton as a trapeze star, Cornel Wilde (with a French accent) as "the Great Sebastian"-a rival trapeze star, Jimmy Stewart as "Buttons-a clown" who stays in makeup to hide from the police due to a scandal and tragedy of his own, and a gorgeous Gloria Grahame (who was hired when Lucille Ball couldn't do it) as the Elephant Girl---who will be in great danger from her sadistic partner. The Technicolor is awesome as are the gaudy costumes but it's the dialogue that's really colorful---I guess "purple prose" might describe it but even that phrase pales in comparison to what comes out of the actor's mouths. This is VERY ripe melodrama set against a wonderful (and real) circus background and you are treated to some admittedly great sights---particularly an incredible trainwreck. The actor's do their best and there are some wonderful guest stars and cameos like Dorothy Lamour as a circus entertainer, and some real surprises I can't reveal. So for pure Hollywood spectacle and some of the corniest dialogue and situations ever created see "The Greatest Show on Earth" and thank Hollywood for treats like this. And by the way, Gloria Grahame did NOT win Best Supporting Actress for this, she won the same year for "The Bad and the Beautiful".
Rating: 
Summary: Groan ... The DeMille "Touch"
Review: For me, this movie already had two strikes against it before I even started watching it: Cecil B. DeMille and Charlton Heston. I've always thought DeMille movies were overproduced, empty spectacles, and that Heston performances were overripe, empty caricatures. Well, both men were true to form in this story about the conflicts behind the scenes at a travelling circus. Heston snarls and orders people around as the circus manager, the object of the affections of Betty Hutton, aerial star, and Gloria Grahame, elephant trainer. Enter Cornel Wilde, the hotblooded French aerial star, and things get complicated (not really ... the story never gets that deep). Jimmy Stewart stars as a clown with a mysterious past (I'm not kidding about that), and Dorothy Lamour is ... well ... I'm not actually sure what her purpose was in the film, other than to badly lip synch a few songs. Other than Stewart, who in all honesty could read the dictionary and make it interesting, the performances are pretty bad. But then again, saddled with such lousy cliched dialogue, there probably wasn't much they could do. Yet although I seem to be trashing this film a lot, it was entertaining somehow. The circus spectacle is colourfully presented, and if you just accept the plot, dialogue, and acting for what they are - products of the DeMille "touch", it is mindlessly fun. That may not be glowing praise, but like I said, for a film that already had two strikes against it in my book, I was expecting worse.
Rating:
Summary: Experience the "BIG TOP " life in TECHNICOLOR now on DVD!
Review: For the first time on DVD Paramount Pictures brings us Cecil B. DeMille's "The Greatest Show on Earth". 1952's biggest box office hit and Oscar Winner for BEST PICTURE. This film has been digitally restored (picture & sound) and presented in beautiful TECHNICOLOR in Standard Format (before WideScreen). There are no Extra Features with this DVD. The picture alone is worth the price of addmission!!!!!!!Why so popular picture in 1952? Director DeMille captured America's heart by a very behind the scenes, up-close life of the circus in eye popping TECHNICOLOR!!!! Every child dreamed of running away to join the circus. Families couldn't wait for their annual visit to the Big Top. The 1950's was about family, fun and entertainment. Ringling Brothers - Barnum & Baily Circus was known as "The Greatest Show on Earth" so they joined Hollywood, DeMille and an ALL-STAR cast; Charlton Heston (first major starring role), Betty Hutton (trained for months to due many of her own aerial stunts), Jimmy Stewart (as Buttons the Clown), Cornel Wilde, Dorthy Lamour (from the Hope & Crosby Road Pictures) and Gloria Grahame to give us a taste of the circus magic. Filmed in gorgeous TECHNICOLOR this film is pure eye candy fun. Demille shows us all these colorful characters and the massive circus army that supports them. How hundreds of circus personell and their exotic animals live the circus life. Saw dust in their veins they entertain us twice a day rain or shine. This is fun stuff. Never mind the story and the Hollywood corniness. Enjoy this brief colorful journey into the world of the canvas tent circus. A must have movie for your family DVD library. Revisit the era of the circus under the "BIG TOP". Let the kids see & experience the days gone by and relive the fun of "THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH". Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Experience the "BIG TOP " life in TECHNICOLOR now on DVD!
Review: For the first time on DVD Paramount Pictures brings us Cecil B. DeMille's "The Greatest Show on Earth". 1952's biggest box office hit and Oscar Winner for BEST PICTURE. This film has been digitally restored (picture & sound) and presented in beautiful TECHNICOLOR in Standard Format (before WideScreen). There are no Extra Features with this DVD. The picture alone is worth the price of addmission!!!!!!! Why so popular picture in 1952? Director DeMille captured America's heart by a very behind the scenes, up-close life of the circus in eye popping TECHNICOLOR!!!! Every child dreamed of running away to join the circus. Families couldn't wait for their annual visit to the Big Top. The 1950's was about family, fun and entertainment. Ringling Brothers - Barnum & Baily Circus was known as "The Greatest Show on Earth" so they joined Hollywood, DeMille and an ALL-STAR cast; Charlton Heston (first major starring role), Betty Hutton (trained for months to due many of her own aerial stunts), Jimmy Stewart (as Buttons the Clown), Cornel Wilde, Dorthy Lamour (from the Hope & Crosby Road Pictures) and Gloria Grahame to give us a taste of the circus magic. Filmed in gorgeous TECHNICOLOR this film is pure eye candy fun. Demille shows us all these colorful characters and the massive circus army that supports them. How hundreds of circus personell and their exotic animals live the circus life. Saw dust in their veins they entertain us twice a day rain or shine. This is fun stuff. Never mind the story and the Hollywood corniness. Enjoy this brief colorful journey into the world of the canvas tent circus. A must have movie for your family DVD library. Revisit the era of the circus under the "BIG TOP". Let the kids see & experience the days gone by and relive the fun of "THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH". Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Experience the "BIG TOP " life in TECHNICOLOR now on DVD!
Review: For the first time on DVD Paramount Pictures brings us Cecil B. DeMille's "The Greatest Show on Earth". 1952's biggest box office hit and Oscar Winner for BEST PICTURE. This film has been digitally restored (picture & sound) and presented in beautiful TECHNICOLOR in Standard Format (before WideScreen). There are no Extra Features with this DVD. The picture alone is worth the price of addmission!!!!!!! Why so popular picture in 1952? Director DeMille captured America's heart by a very behind the scenes, up-close life of the circus in eye popping TECHNICOLOR!!!! Every child dreamed of running away to join the circus. Families couldn't wait for their annual visit to the Big Top. The 1950's was about family, fun and entertainment. Ringling Brothers - Barnum & Baily Circus was known as "The Greatest Show on Earth" so they joined Hollywood, DeMille and an ALL-STAR cast; Charlton Heston (first major starring role), Betty Hutton (trained for months to due many of her own aerial stunts), Jimmy Stewart (as Buttons the Clown), Cornel Wilde, Dorthy Lamour (from the Hope & Crosby Road Pictures) and Gloria Grahame to give us a taste of the circus magic. Filmed in gorgeous TECHNICOLOR this film is pure eye candy fun. Demille shows us all these colorful characters and the massive circus army that supports them. How hundreds of circus personell and their exotic animals live the circus life. Saw dust in their veins they entertain us twice a day rain or shine. This is fun stuff. Never mind the story and the Hollywood corniness. Enjoy this brief colorful journey into the world of the canvas tent circus. A must have movie for your family DVD library. Revisit the era of the circus under the "BIG TOP". Let the kids see & experience the days gone by and relive the fun of "THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH". Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Pleasing entertainment
Review: I am sure Cecil B DeMille knew what he was doing when he chose the circus as the setting for his latest "epic". For it is here in DeMille's big top that ordinary people take on extraordinary proportions. In the circus everyone has a story to tell, and we get to sneak a peak as those stories unfold. DeMille's film also has something of an introspective quality: The circus is like an allegory for Hollywood, with everyone struggling to find their fortune, everyone coming to the melting pot from every walk of life, some finding themselves bruised by the mechanistic and sometimes brutal realities of showbiz. But perhaps I make the film sound more profound than it really is. At the end of the day, this is just entertainment. It is rather lengthy, mainly due to the periodic montages of circus trickery, artistry and buffoonery (though they are generally amusing enough). A good cast sustain it, however, including James Stewart as Buttons, "a clown", whose appearances are unfortunately fleeting.
Rating: 
Summary: The Blandest Show on Earth
Review: I can't believe that this movie won the best picture Oscar for 1952. The DeMille touch is evident in many scenes but the dialogue is trite, the acting is flat and, in the case of Bette Hutton, the character is irritating.
Rating:
Summary: An Endearing Classic
Review: I have seen this film many times, and still i come up with the quality of endearment given to all classics. With it's genre of the great Bible movie over voices and the emphasis on the fact that the cirus is life. It keeps audiances captivated throughout.
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