The Big Circus

The Big Circus was produced ten years after Cecil B. DeMille's Oscar winning "The Greatest Show On Earth" as brought to a close a decade of circus genre films. In this film, Victor Mature plays Hank Whirling, half owners of the Whirling-Borman Brothers Circus - The Biggest Show on the Face of the Earth.

The film begins with Whirling breaking off from the Borman Brothers with his half of the circus. He seeks financial backing from one of the oldest establishments on Wall Street - they will back the project, but aren't sure of the man. They force him to accept straight-laced Red Buttons as his financial adviser.

Buttons hires the beautiful Rhonda Fleming as the shows press agent and soon to be love interest for Mature. Things begin to go wrong for the show at the first Press Party when an escaped lion slinks ferociously into the tent while the party is going on.

There are so many possible villains to choose from. Is it the aloof ringmaster played with understated style by Vincent Price? Could it be the daring aerialist, played by film heavy Gilbert Roland? The lovable, but scary clown played by Peter Lorre? Or even the head man himself, Henry Jasper Whirling played by Mature - can you REALLY trust someone with the middle name of JASPER?

The escaped lion is followed by a freak fire that almost kills off all the circus animals and a train wreck that kills Roland's wife. Meanwhile the natural disasters are taking their tolls on the shows success - harsh and brutal rains diminish audiences while the Bormans' bask in the sunshine.

The show is going to go under if something BIG doesn't bring back the crowds. Mature influences, forces and shames Roland's wire walker to "Walk The Falls" for the good of the show. Cross Niagra Falls walking a tight rope!

We still do not know who the real villain is, but we know he has one last chance to bring the show to it's knees.

Buttons does a great turn as a foil to Mature's anger and bumbles his way through a classic clown routine doubling for an incapacitated Lorre. Kathryn Grant is great as Whirling's sister.

This was all-too-obviously modeled by producer Irwin Allen on Cecil B. De Mille’s prestigious (and surprising) Oscar triumph THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1952); consequently, the script is cliché-ridden, contrived and corny – but the end result is still professionally assembled and definitely not unentertaining for undiscriminating film buffs.

The stars (Victor Mature, Red Buttons and Rhonda Fleming) are easily overshadowed by the character actors (Gilbert Roland, Peter Lorre and Vincent Price); the latter two’s casting may be construed as a red herring given the presence of a saboteur – a rival’s lackey – amidst the troupe. Incidentally, Lorre has the old James Stewart clown role and Gilbert Roland ably steps into Cornel Wilde’s aerialist shoes; his all-important “crossing the Niagara” stunt is a (back-projection) highlight. Similarly, the initial animosity between Mature and ‘interlopers’ Fleming and Buttons predictably blossoms into, respectively, romance and familiarity (due to Buttons becoming engaged to Kathryn Grant, Mature’s younger would-be trapeze artist sister).

Along the way, the circus is hit by potential bank foreclosure, a lion set loose during a press conference, haystacks set ablaze, a fatal train-wreck, a trapeze artist losing his nerve during a performance, etc. The circus is also seen to move with the times – so that beleaguered owner Mature manages to bring his show to the people (rather than the other way around), via the nascent medium of television, when bouts of thunderstorms hit their scheduled stops!

Flamboyant circus owner "Hank Whiting "is in trouble -his enterprise is in need of a cash injection from the bank who only agree to a loan on the condition their employee "Randy Sherman " goes along to keep an eye on proceedings.When he engages a high powered PR woman tension develops between the outsiders and the circus hard core.That is not the end of it however--there is sabotage to contend with ,rain washes away much of the season ,a fatality occurs during a train crash . Gradually the newcomers absorb the spirit of the circus and do battle with its enemies to rescue the show helped by a spectacular stunt walk at Niagara Falls Peter Lorre and Vincent Price are given too little to do as the clown and ringmaster respectively but both are excellent .Red Buttons is fine as Sherman while Victor Mature and Rhonda Fleming take care of the leading romantic roles with seasoned competence. Garish colour is a drawback as is the tightness of the budget .Robust and enjoyable even so .

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).

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.