Cheap The Greatest Show on Earth (Video) (Betty Hutton, Charlton Heston) (Cecil B. DeMille) Price
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| ACTORS: | Betty Hutton, Charlton Heston |
| CATEGORY: | Video |
| DIRECTOR: | Cecil B. DeMille |
| THEATRICAL RELEASE DATE: | 01 January, 1952 |
| MANUFACTURER: | Paramount Studio |
| MPAA RATING: | Unrated |
| FEATURES: | Color, Closed-captioned, HiFi Sound, NTSC |
| TYPE: | Feature Film-action/Adventure |
| MEDIA: | VHS Tape |
| # OF MEDIA: | 2 |
| UPC: | 097360661736 |
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Customer Reviews of The Greatest Show on Earth
Groan ... The DeMille "Touch" 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.
DEMILLE AT HIS BARNUM BEST!
"The Greatest Show on Earth" is probably Cecil B. DeMille's best sound film (sans the 1956 perennial "The Ten Commandments") since it is a film about showmanship. DeMille was cinema's greatest showman, whether his movie plots were historical, religious, dramatic, or just plain American 1950's hokum, such as this one. "The Greatest Show on Earth" succeeds at glorifying the lost art of the world's traveling circus when the circus was performed in tents, vs. the great arenas of today. DeMille's narration adds an air of authenticity to the proceedings, but the audience knows full well that this movie is a big show itself, which is low on the acting quality but big on the spectacle. Some of the matte shots and special effects show their age, especially the model train wreck which climaxes the film. Most fun of all is seeing Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in the circus audience watching their Paramount co-star Dorothy Lamour perform.
What's with this transfer?
Okay, you like the movie or you don't. I do. Corny but a great spectacle,etc. But what's with this transfer? It is full screen, not letterboxed, and some scenes snap inexplicably in and out of close-up mode -- not pan and scan but hop and jump. Damn shame, given the wait for this one.