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Don't listen to the negative reviews

An Exercise In Nonsense

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

RELEASE DETAILS: Copyright 25 June 1964 by Samuel Bronston—Midway Productions. Released through Paramount Pictures. New York opening at Loew's Cinerama: 25 June 1964. U.S. release: 25 June 1964. U.K. release through Rank Film Distributors: 28 December 1964. London opening: 16 July 1964. Australian release through British Empire Films: 4 June 1965. 135 minutes (U.S.); 143 minutes (Australia). U.K. release title: The MAGNIFICENT SHOWMAN.SYNOPSIS: In the early 1900's, an American impresario takes his circus to Europe. COMMENT: "A dismally trite and obvious picture" wrote Bosley Crowther in The New York Times. I would not go anywhere like this far, but yes, the script is undeniably weak. Story issues are introduced which are neither resolved nor developed (particularly those involving Richard Conte character). Much tighter editing would help. We were almost asleep before the climactic fire re-awoke us to the earlier spectacular potential of the script, as in the early boat capsize episode. Both the boat capsize and the fire are particularly well-staged — a seamless collaboration between Hathaway and Talmadge (or did Hathaway stage these eps himself?). Talmadge undoubtedly did the "runaway" horse in the street and all the circus material where the hand of Renoir can be clearly detected in the characteristic use of more muted color than Hildyard is using for the main unit.Certainly Wayne himself is doing some of his own stunts, though a very obvious process screen is often employed. Acting is more creditable than usual under Hathaway's direction, despite the weak and familiar plot, the tedious dialogue and unresolved drama (presumably Conte started the fire and planted the stuff in Claudia Cardinale's dressing room, but after his dramatic impingement into Hayworth's opening shot at trapeze practice, he virtually disappears.Claudia herself is perhaps a little too enthusiastically vivacious and Mr. Smith is far too much of an eager-beaver, but Hayworth's restrained performance holds her scenes together. Wayne is his usual self. Nolan is a liability (admittedly he has the worst of the faithful, trusted sidekick dialogue) but Katherine Kath makes a memorable impression in her scene as Hayworth's former landlady. Kay Walsh has a tiny spot.A great deal of well-deserved footage is given over to the circus acts themselves — the plate sequence with the clowns is most amusingly well-timed, and I enjoyed the introductory act by Conte's double — the clown on the high wire!

It's not an in depth look behind the scenes of a circus. But you will get to see a few things that you might not have known. The core is the story of Wayne and his family. His two families so to speak. It's nicely told, even if some things seem to happen just like that, without much of a problem (or the problem being resolved too easily).There are quite a few stunts on hand here and they are decent enough. Though sometimes when John Waynes character is doing risky things, it is so obviously not John Wayne but his stunt man, that it almost hurts. That is of course something that should not be a big problem. Or do not let it be one, if you can.

One of the previous poster's referred to this NOT being a Cinerama film. He's right, it's not. However, he alludes to it having been advertised as such in some cities. Chicago was one of those. Circus World premiered in Chicago at the McVicker Theater on Madison just west of State. (That theater had previously screened How the West was Won, a TRUE Cinerama film. HTWWW ran there for what seemed to be a year before moving to the neighborhood theaters.) As stated, they had three screens to fill. The newspaper ads even used the Cinerama trademark, (the accordion folded logo). A friend saw it there with his parents, and all he talked about was the ship capsizing sequence. I saw the flick on TV, and, that seemed very anti-climactic. All in all a pretty underwhelming film. One big fluke, near the beginning, John Wayne is being wheeled around the circus ring on top of a stagecoach at full speed. He then shoots burning lamps (or something) off the tops of poles held by assistants in front of the stands full of spectators. Um, wouldn't the bullets being fired hit at least some of those folks behind the targets ? Maybe my memory isn't so good.

Some sources claim Samuel Bronston's "Circus World" was filmed in Cinerama. It wasn't. It was filmed in Ultra-Panavision 70 and released in some venues in the single lens "Ultra-Cinerama" format, which optically expanded the image to fill the huge Cinerama screen. Regardless, the cinematography is outstanding, which, along with a haunting Main Title theme by composer Dimitri Tiomkin, is perhaps the best thing that can be said about this unfortunate production. That is, unless you consider the fact it contributed to the collapse of producer Samuel Bronston's short-lived film empire to be a good thing.It, along with its' sister 1964 Bronston mega-production, "The Fall of The Roman Empire", served to sink the producer's four year Spanish production company and end his fairly short career as a film mogul. In those four years he produced, besides the two films already mentioned, "King of Kings", "55 Days at Peking", and "El Cid". No independent producer had ever attempted so ambitious an undertaking, which made Bronston's failure perhaps even more spectacular than the films he attempted.