I must disagree with the rest of the world and say I liked The Greatest Show on Earth. It is constantly listed as one of the worst best picture winners ever, and it is said that High Noon with Gary Cooper should have won.
 |
| High Noon |
So I went ahead and checked out High Noon first, and was thoroughly unimpressed. I'm not generally a big western fan, so it has to be a really good western to hook me (Lonesome Dove, the 2010 version of True Grit), and High Noon must be one of the most boring westerns ever made. I get it, it's an allegory for some perceived flaw societal flaw, and it lacks all those stale western cliches...blah blah. All this, to me, adds up to one really boring movie. Not to mention, Gary Cooper had zero charisma in this movie. I brought in a special consultant, the handsome and brilliant Tyler Smith, who is a fan of Westerns, and he also disliked the movie, so I don't think I'm just being biased.
On the other hand, though I went skeptically into my viewing of The Greatest Show on Earth (in part because of the bad press, and in part because I've never been into the circus), I really enjoyed it -to the point that I would actually like to own a copy.
None of the circus scenes felt overlong. Perhaps this is because Amelia was watching it with me and was fascinated by everything she saw. It actually made me want to go see the circus. Ironically, I went online to see when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (the circus depicted in the film) would be in town, and we had missed it by a day.
I thought Charlton Heston was terrific as Brad, the circus manager, and the plot grabbed me: the struggle to keep the circus afloat in hard economic times, two dueling acrobats, a love triangle, a disaster, and a triumphant ending. Jimmy Stewart was also great as the mysterious clown, Buttons. The train crash at the end stands the test of time -I was sitting on the edge of my seat.
So there, I have disagreed with all the critics, and I am glad it got the Oscar!
No comments:
Post a Comment