MovieChat Forums > The Greatest Show on Earth Discussion > Manages to be entertaining and a mess al...

Manages to be entertaining and a mess all at the same time

posted 13 years ago by Kuato_and_George
23 replies | jump to latest

The soap opera elements of the movie were very entertaining. Love triangles, hidden pasts, etc. coupled with really over-the-top performances made this an entertaining soap opera set to the background of the circus.

But I can't help but comment on the fact that the movie feels a little jumbled. Part family flick, part drama? The two don't always mesh well.

And some of the stuff I'm supposed to just accept were a little laughable. Sebastion should have been dead, but he gets a claw hand....which we get the impression will go away anyway? Come on.

Then, they have a show - seemingly nobody died - the very next day after the train accident? That's a little absurd.

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[–] doowopfan 10 years ago

I agree with everything you said. There was a lot of good stuff going on yet at the same time I was bored. How can it be exciting and boring at the same time?

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I did sixty in five minutes once...

[–] cwente2 10 years ago

Well . . . one man's meat is another man's poison. I thought it was all great fun -- like the circus itself, a circus story deftly balancing on the precarious edge of believability.

[–] cwente2 10 years ago

"Part family flick, part drama? The two don't always mesh well."

The critics might agree with you. But . . . it's the DeMille style. DeMille presented history (including this modern historical epic) as what it ought to have looked like not what it actually did look like. General audiences tended to side with DeMille. No box office losses in the sound era (except The Crusades, 1935).

[–] Tashtago 10 years ago

for me the biggest mess was DeMille"s transitional narative segments. which combined stock footage of the circus being transported and set up with De Mille sounding like he was narrating the invasion of Normandy. the footage was intersting. but it went on far too long. and there was also the annoying presence of Betty Hutton.

tashtago

[–] bond_98 10 years ago

Its not much of a soap opera if you compare it to something like Game of Thrones.

[–] OswaldshotKennedy 10 years ago

Kuato and George
I visited your movie review site and found the GSOE review embarrassing. You keep referring to Betty Hutton as Betty Button, which is plain ridiculous. Don't give up your day job ... if you have one!

"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston

[–] hammer4 9 years ago

To me this film was somewhat entertaining after one viewing but it doesn't bear repeat watchings.

I think its primary purpose was pretty straightforward, an out and out circus spectacular showcasing all the acts in color and on the big screen. Remember this was only 1952. There is certainly much hokum and the soap opera elements are almost ludicrous at times.

I also heartily agree with the previous poster re DeMille's portentous and self-important narration. This is something he did in many of his films (most I think) and it's a big mistake. What an ego!

[–] cwente2 9 years ago

"... re DeMille's portentious" (I think you mean 'pretentious') "and self-important narration."

Well, I might agree if he was talking about himself and not his subject matter. DeMille always thought his subject matter was culturally important.

"What an ego!"

I'm trying to think of anyone in Hollywood who doesn't have a highly developed ego (the price you pay for success?). And, certainly not someone who began an industry in 1913 (with two other guys) in a small lemon and pepper growing community, and who was able to see the progress that industry had made by 1952, as being an exception to the rule.

Of course, you're entitled to your opinion.

[–] hammer4 9 years ago

The word I used is portentous and it is correct. Per the Merriam-Webster dictionary "self-consciously solemn or important, ponderously excessive".

I am generally not impressed by voice over narration, especially to the extent and manner utilized by DeMille in many of his films. I think the visual images utilized can and do speak for themselves.

[–] cwente2 9 years ago

Small point considering I know what you meant. But we obviously have different dictionaries. Your definition better fits "pretentious" according to my dictionary. "Portentious" has to do with "portend" and "portent" from which the adj comes. Ie., "to give a warning of something (generally evil) to come. Neveretheless, I get your meaning, as I said. I like the narrations. . . In the final analysis, though -- each to his own liking. 

[–] hammer4 9 years ago

Of course, each to his own opinion. These message boards are after all essentially opinion boards. I'm sure there are plenty of people that really like DeMille's narrations and plenty that don't. That doesn't make the first group "right" and the second group "wrong" or vice versa.

I certainly have respect for C.B.DeMille as a filmmaker and Hollywood pioneer.

[–] Wuchak (8068) 4 years ago

Sorry, cwente2, but "portentous" is the more fitting word for DeMille's narration in the movie compared to "pretentious." Here's the Oxford definition of the former: "Done in a pompously or overly solemn manner so as to impress, e.g. ‘the author's portentous moralizings’." https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/portentous

[–] hammer4 9 years ago

How do you know what DeMille thought?

[–] cwente2 9 years ago

I don't know what DeMille thought, of course -- any more than I know what Jackie Cooper, Joan Crawford, Napoleon, or Adolph Hitler thought. But, I spent time with a few of DeMille's co-workers, read his autobiography, and four biographies. So my opinion is based upon a good deal of data and a logical interpretation of same. Okay?

[–] hammer4 9 years ago

I don't doubt that you know a good deal about DeMille. Whether or not he considered his subject to be culturally important is besides the point,that is that I feel his narratives do not add value to this film.

[–] OswaldshotKennedy 9 years ago

You are wrong Ken. DeMille's narration is terrific - he may be OTT, but that is why I admire him so much.

The internet is for lonely people. People should live. Charlton Heston

[–] hammer4 9 years ago

I disagree, but I see your point. It seems that people either LOVE that inimitable, grandiloquent style or they Hate it. There have been very few if any movie directors that have insinuated themselves into their films as DeMille did.

[–] cwente2 9 years ago

DeMille saw himself, I think, as a kind of "grand old man" of Hollywood (he was its principal founder) more at home in the Edwardian period than in the present, (his present, as a director). He was always in control in both his personal and professional life (Edwardian style). When he was a kid pretending, he saw himself as an heroic character with great, masculine principles behind the imagined triumphs. Then, he called himself "the champion driver" (his Autobiography). Even the villains in his pictures were always strong and worthy of their "good guy" adversaries (Rameses in The Ten Commandments, Lafitte in The Buccaneer, John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind, etc., etc.) So, since the circus is the real star in GSOE, everyone who made it work was a "champion driver" to him -- from John Ringling North to the clowns and the guys who hammered the tent pegs. It was essential, then, that he give each of them their moment (as he tended to do in all his other historical pictures) -- to show the audience just how these strong men and women made "The Greatest Show on Earth" the greatest show on earth(!) (or, Americans in the French and Indian War, or the builders of a transcontinental railroad, or enslaved Hebrews, or ....) -- which he could best do through narration. Producer/directors like him are, today, virtually non-existent. . . Too bad.

[–] hammer4 9 years ago

You make some very interesting points. I guess the basic disagreement is that I simply do not feel that voice over narration is the best way to cinematically depict characters, events, situations,etc within a motion picture.

By the way, I am reading the DeMille biography Empire of Dreams by Scott Eyman. I'm sure others on this site have read it and would be interested in their opinions.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] cwente2 9 years ago

Empire of Dreams is, imo, one of the best. Enjoy!

[–] OswaldshotKennedy 9 years ago

DeMille's narration in TGSOE is so enthusiastic and inspiring that I can't imagine the movie without it. It would be missing its heart and soul.

The internet is for lonely people. People should live. Charlton Heston

[–] HarlemEagle42 (16110) 2 years ago

So a Cecil B. DeMille movie is what you're saying?