25th Academy Awards · 1953
The Greatest Show on Earth
Directed by Cecil B. DeMille
“The Heartbeat Story of Circus People, Filmed with the Cooperation of Ringling Bros. - Barnum and Bailey Circus!”
The story
To ensure a full profitable season, circus manager Brad Braden engages The Great Sebastian, though this moves his girlfriend Holly from her hard-won center trapeze spot. Holly and Sebastian begin a dangerous one-upmanship duel in the ring, while he pursues her on the ground.
What critics & audiences say
Tomatometer50%Rotten#97 of 98 winnersFamous lines
You can shake the sawdust off your feet, but you can't shake it outta your heart.
If he should make love well after this, pay no attention - it will be me.
Listen, sugar, the only way that you can keep me warm is to wrap me up in a marriage license.
Sebastian: Why are you in make-up?
Buttons: Why are you The Great Sebastian?
I know Mother. They'll never find me, behind this nose.
We bring you the circus, pied piper whose magic tunes greet children of all ages, from six to 60, into a tinsel and spun-candy world of reckless beauty and mounting laughter and whirling thrills…
Buttons: Do you believe in prayer?
Brad Braden: And practice.
Angel: How come no husband ever shot you?
Sebastian: I never offer a sitting target.
Phyllis: Why is it whenever he's around, I'm all wet?
Birdie: In more ways than one.
Buttons: Clowns are funny people, they only love once.
Holly: All men aren't that way, even if they act like clowns.
Quotes via Wikiquote
Fun facts
- The Greatest Show on Earth was the first film Steven Spielberg ever saw, and he credits it as a major inspiration. The opening scene of his 2022 film The Fabelmans dramatizes his first viewing of it.Wikipedia · Influence
- Spielberg cites the film's train crash scene as a major influence on Super 8, and the trainwreck is briefly shown on a TV in his 2005 War of the Worlds.Wikipedia · Influence
- The real Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus 1951 troupe appears in the film, with its 1,400 people, hundreds of animals and 60 railroad cars of equipment and tents.Wikipedia · Production
- The film was shot in Sarasota, Florida, where locals were paid 75 cents per hour to work as extras.Wikipedia · Production
- The film beat High Noon, The Quiet Man and the unnominated Singin' in the Rain, and is often named among the weakest Best Picture winners. Empire ranked it the third-worst in 2005.Wikipedia · Oscar controversy
- It was Cecil B. DeMille's only competitive Oscar win. After accepting, DeMille admitted, "I thought The Quiet Man or High Noon would get it."Wikipedia · Oscar controversy
- Art Concello, the circus's general manager and the first flyer ever to land the triple somersault in performance, devised and performed The Great Sebastian's fall from the high rigging.Wikipedia · Production
- Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde had to learn the trapeze, though Wilde may have struggled because of his fear of heights. Footage exists of Hutton rehearsing 40 feet in the air.Wikipedia · Production
- The film earned $12.8 million in the U.S. and Canada, making it the top-grossing film of 1952 and Paramount's most successful film to that point.Wikipedia · Release
- The film's theme song later became the theme for WGN-TV's long-running The Bozo Show.Wikipedia · Influence