Review of The Greatest Show on Earth

Most everything that needs to be said about this film has been said: that it is typical Cecil B. De Mille hokum, that it is wondrously undeserving of the Best Picture Oscar it nabbed for 1952, that it manages to capture a world that doesn't exist anymore, etc., etc. And a great deal has been said about James Stewart's fine understated performance in perpetual clown makeup. Charlton Heston has been a fine, sometimes brilliant actor, but here he was very early in his career and hadn't quite worked out the use of nuance in the tough leading man role, and in the nuance department, not many people compete with Jimmy Stewart. Stewart makes every moment real, even though his character takes some suspension of disbelief. (Years in the circus without ever taking off his makeup and he has aroused neither suspicion nor terminal eczema?) But seeing this thing again after many years, I was quite surprised to see how Cornel Wilde absolutely leaps off the screen. Though I've long been a fan of his, nothing prepared me for the charisma that he radiated in every frame. He's not the actor Stewart is -- maybe not even that Heston is -- but if he had been an unknown when he made this film, it would have made him a star the way "Thelma and Louise" made Brad Pitt a star. Though some have quibbled with his accent, apparently not aware that Wilde was fluent in French, German, Hungarian, and several other European languages, it is the sheer dazzling quality of his presence that is now for me the most memorable part of this movie. As the movie started, I was surprised to realize that Wilde has top billing among the male actors. But moments after his entrance, I realized why.