The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

Tivo's description of this movie says "Action Adventure (1952) Betty Hutton, Charlton Heston, Cornel Wilde, Dorothy Lamour. A high-wire artist, the girlfriend of a circus manager, falls for a French aerialist." How it failed to mention Jimmy Stewart as a bad clown named Buttons who just happens to have learned enough about medicine in the Navy to save the circus manager's life at a key moment in the film is beyond me!
Let me repeat this slowly:
Jimmy Stewart.
In clown costume for the entire movie.
Playing Buttons the bad clown.
Who is secretly a surgeon.

There you have it, the reason to watch the movie, right there, nothing more required...but there is quite a lot more that is offered.

Oh what else? It's a musical. It's a big schmaltzy expensive costume musical with live animals and costumes that would shame Las Vegas showgirls. And this is what TCM describes as "Action Adventure"? (I happen to know that the program information on Tivo is usually supplied by the network....)



Okay, okay, all the music is diegetic, they sing as part of the circus, sing to cheer themselves up or to advertise the show - no-one sings a story or a monologue or a line that could have been spoken - but still - a coordinated number with dancing girls swinging from pineapple-bedecked ropes is quite, quite good.

By the way, that number would be, according to the ringmaster: 'The luscious Phyllis dances and sings to the sultry strains of Lovely Luawana Lady!" (Dorothy Lamour plays Phyllis)

Because Hawaii was only recently made a state we had to humiliate it, right? Like some kind of national hazing ritual?

On the more modern tip, the lyric "they don't pack that wicky whack" could easily be sampled for a hip-hop track - Diddy is probably all over it already.

WHAT is not to love about a circus movie? It allows people to say lines like
"You've got sawdust in your veins" and
"The only thing about you I'm interested in is your elephants" and
"When I kiss you, I need to have my feet planted firmly on the ground"
and while we're quoting favorite lines:
"I've never run from a fight" "and I've never lost one"
"What does a girl have to say to make a blind man see"
"Be careful of that halo, sister, it's phony, it'll slip and you'll be wearing it around your neck"
"Don't believe everything you hear, it's only half of what you see."
"Is that a professional opinion?" "That's a clown's opinion!"

The plot is thick - there's a rival circus named the Columbia, a crooked carnival games mobster, a jealous showgirl rival of the "high=wire artist" (who also does trapeze, by the way, so I'm not sure why she's a "high-wire artist" in the description). There is a german elephant-trainer who is in love with the showgirl rival, there is the crazy french aerialist who is completely obnoxious and deserves to fall and break his stupid arm.

Then of course there is a clown with a dark secret and a cute little dog (possibly named Squeaker?).

The aerialist tries a trick without a net to show off for the high-wire artist and ends up falling. The high-wire artist falls in love with his derring-do and leaves the poor hard-working sullen Charlton Heston - I've never liked him in anything but the aerialist is so arrogant and obnoxious it really makes it easy to love him. After this the movie goes on for another hour - the plot twists and twists again - the rival goes for the dumped circus manager, the high-wire artists chases the aerialist, a detective comes looking for the clown - and on and on...ending with a train crash in which a leopard escapes making me decide that this movie is the other side of the "Bringing Up Baby" story - remember the escaped leopard? It's dangerous? It escapes from a train that is crashed? This could be that leopard! I choose to see it that way.

They must have shot a lot of the crowd scenes in a hangar on the lot because the crowd has some stars in it (I spotted Bob Hope at one point) and I'm sure some executives if I knew who to look for. They must've hired some circus people to do the acts and filmed those, but they also used a LOT of green screen. A LOT. It's pretty entertaining to speculate on why - I mean the effects shots are obvious - but in one scene there are just a bunch of people packing stuff up in the background - they couldn't shoot that? Or they just forgot and had to pick it up as an insert shot?

Once in a great while a movie comes along that is so bad it becomes good again - one might even call it a Great Bad Movie. This is might just be the Greatest Bad Movie on Earth...maybe.
Three stars, would positively watch again. Probably going to do so right now.

For Me and My Gal (1942)

I have a new favorite movie, and it is For Me and My Gal. It has a great love story, great dancing and singing, an actual plot that is interesting, and dramatic moments that don't make me cringe. It's black and white and the musical numbers are all performed on the stage so even people who don't like musicals might like this one. Other good points: lots of trains in this movie and it's a movie about show business, which is always awesome.

However, I attribute a lot of the charm to the chemistry between the stars. After seeing Summer Stock I was struck that the chemistry between Garland and Kelly was so good. I was surprised because I had previously thought of Garland usually as very young (you have that impression of her I guess from all those young roles like Dorothy and the Andy Hardy movies). Kelly is always so mature - even when he plays a young man he's so slick - even when he plays awkward it's smooth - so I was sort of surprised that they were playing opposite each other, but it worked.

Then I had to watch the Pirate - not much chance for chemistry there - but when they did have a quiet moment, it seemed like they were trying to be sincere. Most of the time they weren't playing it serious, though, it was pure comic over-the-top nonsense.

But this movie is - - perfect. It's Gene Kelly's film debut, and he's amazing. Judy Garland got him the role after she saw him perform on Broadway so there is some of the reason for their warmth for each other. They had some respect for each other before they even started working on the film.

I read a post on IMDB that described Garland as "fragile" and Kelly as "muscular" but I disagree - Garland is anything but fragile, she seems like she could survive anything, and HAS survived everything. When she talks to her kid brother and talks him out of quitting medical school you get the feeling that they might have been through a lot more together than they say. But she is vulnerable, and that plays so well on screen where movie stars seem so perfect. That was always her genius - ever since "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" she can make us feel that something is missing for her and we want it, too. She can wring the emotion out of any song, which is what makes her so great.

Kelly on the other hand is all slickness and polish with moments of softness thrown in a classic lover-not-a-fighter - when his smooth character reveals a moment of weakness you are touched because he's usually so brash and confident.

It's a great combination, and they are well cast for the roles in this film.

It's really kind of epic following them through a decade or so as they meet, join forces as a vaudeville act, face the war together, split up and eventually reunite.

There are great dancing scenes, some cute vaudeville acts, and I can't even recall a particularly offensive one among them - unless you count the one that acts out a man purchasing a woman-doll and taking her home. But on a scale of one to blackface musical number in White Christmas, it's a one.

Four stars - for great music - all classic American songs from the vaudeville era - great performances in the dramatic roles by all the actors - great costumes - only some of the stage ones are embarrassing, most of the others are great and some I really really want to own - and a great romantic story. Will watch again right away.