Cecil B de Mille goes to the circus and comes up with a terrific spectacle - there's elephants, trains, big tops, trapeze artists, clowns, heaps of montages of the circus moving, songs and lots and lots of movie stars. For all their colour and movement, though, circuses aren't that dramatic, so a lot of the action here feels pasted on - a train crash, a man on the run hiding out.
Betty Hutton isn't very beliveable as a trapeze artist but Cornel Wilde is completely convincing. Charlton Heston has the look and presence to cover his stiffness in a role that really would have been better played by Burt Lancaster or Kirk Douglas (he spends a lot of his time walking around like he's constipated). Dorothy Lamour is completely wasted in a nothing part, Gloria Grahame does her patented sexpot thing, and I really liked the gimmick of James Stewart covering his face all the time in clown make up (I went with this plot). Edmund O'Brien pops up at the end.
This shouldn't have won the Best Picture Oscar but is likely and colourful and has enough pulpy story and movie stars to keep you watching.
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