The Big Circus (1959)

Really Surprised!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Irwin Allen produced this circus melodrama for second-string Allied Artists Productions, from a screenplay he co-authored with Charles Bennett and Irving Wallace--did all three of them fall in love with 1952's "The Greatest Show on Earth"? A financially-strapped traveling circus unknowingly harbors a killer amongst its troupe, revealed in a big climax under the tent with a full audience in attendance and at least one TV camera rolling! Allen did his best to round up colorful talents for this Big Top opus, and Victor Mature, Gilbert Roland and Vincent Price (as the master of ceremonies) each do good work. The weak supporting cast and even weaker attempts at humor are another matter. The song at the closing says 'it's a gay time at the circus,' which in this case is false advertising. ** from ****

If you assemble a cast consisting of Victor Mature, Red Buttons, Rhonda Fleming, Vincent Price and David Nelson, I will not expect much. Between them, they created few quality roles. Unfortunately, they lived up to my lack of expectation.But blame this debacle on Irwin Allen, whose "vision" created this lackluster production. As has been mentioned, Allen's plot is very derivative of The Greatest Show on Earth (the worst winner of the Best Film Oscar) . Someone suggested that Big Circus be viewed as camp. I guess you could try that with all bad movies. Try as it might, the horrible script could not dim all the talents of Gilbert Roland as the aerialist. And Kathryn Grant (not long married to Bing Crosby) shines on screen, despite the ridiculous story lines. (lucky her, she wins the affections of Red Buttons even though she thought Rhonda Fleming had dibs on him). The only portion of the plot I enjoyed was Red's surprise clown performance as a substitute for the morose Peter Lorre.What else is wrong with this film? The incidental music is intrusive, the staging is rigid and unnatural (notice how the director manages to routinely display up to 9 characters in a tableau), and the dialogue is trite and uninspired (there are some really insipid lines).The big cat act is fine (as cats cannot act), though uninspiring. The trapeze act is realistic, because it's real. But these minor aspects lend little to the overall story.This big top is a big flop.SPOILER: One more thing. There is an unknown saboteur among the circus performers. The director goes way out of his way to force Vincent Price (renowned movie villain) upon us as a suspect. It's so obviously a red herring. In the end, the villain is revealed to be David Nelson (America's good boy heart throb, playing against type--get it?). As Bugs Bunny would say, "what a maroon!"

Special Effects Master Irwin Allen makes this movie look good with the camera and Technicolor available in 1959. It is entertaining, but no masterpiece to be sure.For one thing, Victor Mature is kind of wasted here. It is not Mature's fault but has to do with the script as he only gets the bare minimum of chances to act as he has very little dialog to work with. Rhonda Fleming and the women in the cast are OK but in spite of a couple of romantic angles put into the script, do not really shine and that has to do some with the script too.Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Red Buttons are clearly support but I think an opportunity was missed by central casting. It is obvious that Lorre is not feeling well by the way he acts in the film. It might have been more effective to have cast Lorre in a different role as he does not have the energy to make a good clown. Buttons actually doubles for him in a clown sequence. If Buttons had been cast as the clown, the film could have come out better.It is still a decent film in spite of this and Price is really just the RingMaster of the Circus it seems. With the recent successful Walenda tight wire walk across Niagra Falls, this one seems a bit obvious as you can tell a back projection screen is employed by Allen. Still it does mention someone had done it 100 years earlier which makes the recent Wallenda walk more significant.

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.