--- title: "The Greatest Show on Earth" year: 1952 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-greatest-show-on-earth" fi1m_score: 56 critics_score: 61 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-20T02:22:14.365734+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T02:23:03.882202+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) Directed by Cecil B. DeMille · 2h 32m · MPA NR · Drama, Romance **Fi1m score: 56** · Critics 61 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* Real elephants, real trapeze, real sawdust, and a love story made of cardboard > Cecil B. DeMille films a real circus with real care, and the tent-raising, the parade and the trapeze acts are worth anyone’s evening. Then the people start talking. The romance is stiff, the narration is pompous, and 152 minutes is a long afternoon. ## Synopsis The Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey circus is about to go on the road, and its manager Brad Braden (Charlton Heston) wants a full season under canvas. The owners want ten weeks in the big cities and no more. Brad wins by signing The Great Sebastian (Cornel Wilde), a star trapeze artist, which means moving Holly (Betty Hutton), the show’s own flyer and Brad’s girl, out of the centre ring. Holly takes it badly and sets out to beat Sebastian at his own act, higher each time. Around them the circus assembles: Angel (Gloria Grahame) and Phyllis (Dorothy Lamour) on the elephant and iron-jaw acts, Klaus (Lyle Bettger), the elephant trainer who wants Angel, and Buttons (James Stewart), a clown who never takes his make-up off, even between shows. ## Review Cecil B. DeMille took his cameras to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey circus and filmed a season of it: the trains, the canvas, the elephants, the flyers, the crowds. Through the sawdust he ran a love story, or two and a half of them, with Hollywood stars in the costumes. The circus is real and the love story is not, and *The Greatest Show on Earth* is a good film whenever it looks at the first and a poor one whenever it turns to the second. It turns to the second a great deal. Whenever DeMille points George Barnes’s Technicolor camera at the circus itself, the film earns its title. The tent goes up at dawn with roustabouts hauling on the ropes and elephants leaning into the poles, and Barnes stays wide enough that we can see the whole machine working at once. The parade fills the ring with plumes and animals, the spotlights carve pink and blue circles out of the dark, and Anne Bauchens cuts between the acts, the crowd and the boss at ringside so that the ring never sits still. Emmett Kelly, in his own tramp make-up, drifts along the edges of scenes and is funnier without a line than anyone with one. Dorothy Jeakins and Edith Head must have sewn on several thousand spangles between them, and every one catches the light. The trapeze duel is the best of it. Holly and Sebastian go up one after the other and try to outdo each other, and the camera goes up into the rigging with them, looking down past the wire at the sawdust a long way below. We gripped the arm of the sofa. We did not believe a word of the rivalry, but those are bodies in the air and the floor is where it is, and Barnes never lets us forget the distance. Wilde plays it grinning, Hutton plays it shouting, and the crowd below plays it exactly as we did. The trouble is everything said at ground level. Heston’s Brad loves the circus more than anyone in it, and Heston plays this by jutting his jaw at every woman who speaks to him and answering in the voice of a man reading a timetable. Hutton pitches every line as if calling across a field, which suits the ring and wears thin in a caravan. Wilde has the easiest time of it, all teeth and shrugs. Gloria Grahame does more with one bored glance than the script asks of her in two hours, and Lyle Bettger’s Klaus scowls so hard and so early that the film might as well have hung a sign on him. James Stewart is the exception. Buttons the clown keeps his make-up on between shows and will not say why, and Henry Wilcoxon’s Agent Gregory keeps turning up at the lot asking questions. Stewart plays it small, all in the eyes, and the film has the sense to let him. It is the one story here that is shown rather than announced, and we were sorry each time the others interrupted it. The script announces everything else. Three writers share the screenplay, Theodore St. John, Fredric M. Frank and Barré Lyndon, and between them they have not written a line that trusts us to work anything out. Over the top runs a narration in the tones of a sermon, telling us the circus is a mighty machine and its people are brave, while the pictures are already showing us both. Victor Young’s score marches everything along in brass and drum, which suits the parade and flattens the caravan scenes. By the second hour we had stopped following the romances and were watching the elephants behind the actors. There is a late set piece, famous enough that you may have heard of it, which we will not describe beyond saying that for a few minutes the story and the spectacle need each other, and the film is what it wanted to be. Chaplin got more out of one ring and no colour in *The Circus* (1928). Watch this one at home, where the talky stretches can be talked over. It runs 152 minutes and carries a U, and children who like elephants will forgive it everything the adults cannot. *Fi1m score 56, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics, certainly those writing on release, take the film as showmanship first and judge it kindly on those terms. The praise clusters on DeMille’s staging of the circus itself: acts filmed under a real big top with Ringling Bros., the colour and movement of the parades, the montage of the caravan on the road. Several find the Hollywood stars slot in convincingly among the working performers, and the train crash draws attention even from those unmoved by the rest. The reservations gather around the story. Even admirers concede the romantic triangle is a framework rather than a drama, and the harsher notices call the characterisation childish and the romances foolish, interrupting the spectacle and stretching a long film into tedium. The spread is wide, from the trade papers and daily press of 1952 near the top to Sight and Sound at the bottom, and the split follows the calendar: the later reviews are the coldest, though The AV Club spares a word for James Stewart’s understated clown. ### Reviews we read (7) - **Los Angeles Times**, Edwin Schallert (90/100, inferred): Hails the film as one of DeMille's finest and a triumph of showmanship, celebrating its maximum entertainment value, glamour, authenticity from the real circus, thrilling narrative with appealing and spectacular climaxes, and the stellar cast. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/story/2022-09-02/from-the-archives-greatest-show-demille-triumph) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (90/100, inferred): The critic praises DeMille's spectacular and authentic portrayal of the circus, highlighting its movement, life, dynamic montage effects, and the way it captures the excitement of the big top and its caravan. Strong performances from the cast are noted as enhancing the showmanship. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1952/01/11/archives/the-screen-in-review-de-mille-puts-greatest-show-on-earth-on-film.html) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, David Hanna (85/100, inferred): The critic praises DeMille for forging a fabulous, spectacular entertainment that captures the magic, color, and human drama of the circus with authentic detail from the Ringling Bros. partnership. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/greatest-show-earth-review-1952-movie-1174845/) - **Variety**, Herb Golden (70/100, inferred): Commends the spectacle, thrills, spangles, Big Top atmosphere, and seamless integration of Hollywood stars with real circus acts and authentic details, though notes the unsubtle story serves mainly as framework and some sequences feel like excess baggage. [Read](https://variety.com/1952/film/reviews/the-greatest-show-on-earth-2-1200417097) - **The AV Club**, Noel Murray (40/100, inferred): The critic calls it a bloated, hammy Best Picture winner with an overheated romantic triangle but singles out Jimmy Stewart's subtle clown performance and the authentic circus pageantry and acts for praise. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-greatest-show-on-earth-1798199630) - **The New Yorker**, John McCarten (30/100, inferred): Praises the engrossing circus sequences and DeMille's handling of the spectacle when not focused on plot, but criticizes the meagre, foolish romantic storylines that interrupt and make the long film rather boring overall. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1952/01/19/1952-01-19-083-tny-cards-000037634) - **Sight and Sound** (20/100, inferred): The critic finds the film boring with childish characterization and dialogue, fake circus acts, and a lack of imagination, despite its scale. They single out the megalomaniac commentary and the destructive train crash sequence. [Read](http://old.bfi.org.uk/features/ultimatefilm/chart/details.php?ranking=32) ## Details - **Director:** Cecil B. DeMille - **Director:** Cecil B. DeMille - **Screenplay:** Fredric M. Frank, Theodore St. John, Barré Lyndon - **Story:** Fredric M. Frank, Theodore St. John, Frank Cavett - **Cinematography:** George Barnes - **Editor:** Anne Bauchens - **Music:** Victor Young - **Costume design:** Edith Head, Dorothy Jeakins - **Producer:** Cecil B. DeMille - **Cast:** Betty Hutton as Holly; Cornel Wilde as The Great Sebastian; Charlton Heston as Brad Braden; Dorothy Lamour as Phyllis; Gloria Grahame as Angel; James Stewart as Buttons; Henry Wilcoxon as Agent Gregory; Lyle Bettger as Klaus - **Runtime:** 2h 32m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 21 February 1952 - **Genres:** Drama, Romance - **Budget:** $4 million - **Box office:** $36 million ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AT, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FR, GB, HR, HU, IE, IN, IT, JP, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, RO, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1953: Best Costume Design, Color (nominated); Best Director (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Picture (won); Best Story (won) ## If you liked this - *Trapeze* (1956): Carol Reed in the same rigging, with a love triangle written for adults - *The Circus* (1928): Chaplin, one ring and no colour, and more circus in it than this - *La Strada* (1954): Fellini’s travelling strongman and his waif; the sawdust is Italian and the sadness is real - *Sawdust and Tinsel* (1953): Bergman’s threadbare Swedish circus, humiliation in the ring and out of it - *Freaks* (1932): Tod Browning’s sideshow melodrama, where the performers are the real thing and the villains are not --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-greatest-show-on-earth