Samuel Bronston had tackled Revolutionary America, medieval Spain. the Boxer Rebellion and Ancient Rome -with this he turned his eye on turn of the century circuses. Not as inherently violent as those periods, but still plenty of spectacle and colour. John Wayne is believable as a circus owner and its nice to see him out of Westerns.
But they didn't bring a story.Wayne runs a circus, has an adoptive daughter (Claudia Cardinale) and a rival (John Smith) plus a best friend (Lloyd Nolan). He decides to take his show to Europe. Things get off to a rocky start when, in the film's best sequence, the boat capsizes and a lot of his animals and equipment are sunk. But he bounces back with relative ease, gets together a new circus and is a success. There's a fire at the end, but no members of the public are present and it's quickly resolved.
There's a subplot - or is it the main plot, I wasn't sure - about Wayne and Cardinale who run in to Rita Hayworth, Cardinale's mother; she was married to Cardinale's father, but had an affair with Wayne which resulted in the dad basically killing himself on the trapeze.
There are interesting elements raised but never developed. At the beginning a lot is made of John Wayne and John Smith being Wild West style artists, which is cool and a great reason to explain their presence in the cast... but then this feels forgotten and these two just hang around the circus at the end. Lloyd Nolan feels as though he's in the movie just for exposition. Richard Conte looks as though he's about to do something interesting, as a clown who is the brother of Cardinale's father, but he never does. (Or is he the person who wrote "suicide" on Cardinale's wall? I wasn't sure who did that.) John Smith's character threatens to become interesting, with this supposed rivalry with Wayne and romancing Cardinale - but the script never develops any conflict. (Why not make him Wayne's biological son? Why not ramp up the conflict?)
The romance between Cardinale and Smith is rushed through and feels a bit yuck because although Cardinale is stunning as always (especially in those trapeze outfits), she plays it so naive and child like.
John Wayne is fun. Richard Conte and Nolan are professional. John Smith is weak; his role was to have been played by Rod Taylor, and it's a shame it wasn't - Taylor is simply a better, more charismatic actor and the part could've used it. Rita Hayworth was excellent in her part; she looks tragic and is a believable trapeze artist. Many good elements, but it doesn't mesh, and the film's failure at the box office is hardly surprising.
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