Circus World/The Magnificent Showman (1964) - Hathaway and Bronston's grand, ill-fated curio

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This poster for Henry Hathaway's Circus World seems to promise John Wayne going through a flaming hell in the film

QUICK REVIEW:

An American circus director, who loves the circus and hates superstition, wants to transfer his success to Europe, but after a peculiar ferry accident, he is left with nothing and has to fight his way to his goal using all his talents.

Circus World (The Magnificent Showman in the UK) has nice effects and a good Dimitri Tiomkin (The Guns of Navarone (1961)) score, but its plot is strangely unfocused, perhaps because it seems to have been constructed around the plan to capture the contemporary success of circuses and create a spectacular hit by doing this, rather than around a story which was interesting in and of itself. The film has three story credits and three different screenwriter credits, among them master screenwriter Ben Hecht (Notorious (1946)). It is a story that develops without much nerve into a rather convulsive melodrama.
- This along with seemingly endless circus performances, (the film is 135 minutes long.) Producer Samuel Bronston (El Cid (1961)) must have had an erroneous faith in the magic of circus, which I for one don't share. (And I don't seem to be alone, judging by the numbers below.)
The odd ending SPOILER about swinging around cements the dubious impression left behind by Circus World.
The film was haunted behind the camera during its laborious shoot, (lasting from September '63 to February '64), as star John Wayne (True Grit (1969)) was in the early stages of his lung cancer, which he would require an operation for soon after the film, and co-star Rita Hayworth (Gilda (1946)) was in her early stages of Alzheimer's disease, drinking heavily, missing her schedule and forgetting her lines.
It was directed by Henry Hathaway, who would direct Wayne some years hence in his career's golden swan song, the only movie he received an Oscar for, the great True Grit.

Related review:

Henry Hathaway: Airport (1970) or, A Genre Is Born (sequences)

In lieu of a trailer, - not available on Youtube, strengthening the impression of a brushed-away flop, - here's one of Dimitri Tiomkin's Globe-nominated songs from the film

Cost: Estimated 9 mil. $
Box office: 1.5 mil. $ (North America only)
= Huge flop
[Unless Circus World was a flaming success internationally, (which would have almost certainly been reported somewhere), it turned out a gross miscalculation and was most likely a film that most involved were happy to put behind them as soon as possible. It seems even its rights holders still believe so, because it hasn't been released on DVD in America specifically, only on an all region DVD.]

What do you think of Circus World?
Other circus movies that you've seen?

Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) - The quintessential anti-hero picture, Curtiz's electric gangster masterpiece

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With strong, splashy colors, striking composition and great detail, this is one delicious poster for Michael Curtiz's Angels With Dirty Faces

Rocky Sullivan wasn't a bad kid. But in juvenile penitentiary, he became one. Outside a gangster, and then behind bars again. When Rocky gets out, the neighborhood brats look up to him. But Rocky is heading into his own private abyss of self-destruction.

Angels With Dirty Faces is written by John Wexley (Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939)) and Warren Duff (Step Lively (1944)), based on a story by Rowland Brown (Widow's Might (1935)), with Ben Hecht (Angel Face (1953)) and Charles MacArthur (The Mad Doctor (1941)) contributing uncredited work, and is directed by Hungarian master filmmaker Michael Curtiz (Mildred Pierce (1945)).
James Cagney (The West Point Story (1950)) has street smarts and an electric charisma that beats every other actor's who has ever tried portraying a tantalizing hoodlum; as Rocky Sullivan, he's on fire! The character seems to trick himself through just about everything in the film, especially in the ultra-real scenes with The Dead End Kids (Crime School (1938)) group of teenage outcasts.
Across from Cagney in Curtiz' timeless, hugely quotable gangster masterpiece is Humphrey Bogart (The Harder They Fall (1956)) as the slimy lawyer and Pat O'Brien (Johnny One-Eye (1950)) as Rocky's childhood friend who has become a the minister, the redeeming character of the film, beautifully acted and written.
Angels With Dirty Faces is a singularly electrifying street drama and one of the best gangster movies ever; an incredibly potent, raw and enjoyable film that feels like it claws right through your imagination and sheds its juice into your open, palpitating heart. A true classic.

Related posts:

Michael Curtiz: Top 10: The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Casablanca (1942) - The perfect film

 

Get a sense of the intensity of Angels With Dirty Faces from its original trailer right here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 1.7 mil. $
= Uncertain
[Angels With Dirty Faces was released 26 November (USA) and runs 96 minutes. Cagney took the story with him to Warner Bros. from Grand National Pictures when that company was nearing its 1939 bankruptcy. He drew on his memories of growing up in Manhattan and even of losing a childhood friend to the electric chair. Shooting took place in California and New York from June - August 1938. Cagney at one point used force to instill order around the notoriously unruly Dead End Kids. Later in the shoot the star was nearly shot, when live machine gun fire was used in a shootout scene, leading Cagney to conclude that the practice of using real bullets on film was "ridiculous." The film's budget is not known, but it is said to have been a financial success. It was nominated for 3 Oscars: Best Actor (Cagney), lost to Spencer Tracy in Boys Town, Director (Curtiz was also nominated that year for Four Daughters), lost to Frank Capra with You Can't Take It with You, and Original Story, lost to Boys Town. It won a National Board of Review award. Curtiz returned with uncredited direction on Blackwell's Island (1939) and credited as director with Dodge City (1939). Cagney returned in The Oklahoma Kid (1939); O'Brien in Swingtime in the Movies (1938, short) and theatrically in Off the Record (1939). Angels With Dirty Faces is certified fresh at 100 % with an 8.18/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Angels With Dirty Faces?

A Farewell to Arms (1957) or, Love in Spite!

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Despite this handsome poster for Charles Vidor's A Farewell to Arms, David O. Selznick's final production is not all that it promises to be

A Farewell to Arms is the second adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's (Death in the Afternoon (1932)) same-titled, semi-autobiographical 1929 novel.

The film portrays a romance during WWI between an American ambulance driver and an English nurse, who fall in love in Italy, before the war splits them up, and they later again find each other and are forced to flee to Switzerland, SPOILER where, however, tragedy awaits.

Despite criticisms to the contrary, I found Rock Hudson (Dynasty (1984-85)) and Jennifer Jones (The Wild Heart (1952)) to be a lovely couple, and the movie also attracts interest with its big sets and period vehicles etc., a warm sense of humor, - especially in the hospital scenes, - and in supporting roles, Viennese star Oskar Homolka (Five Fingers (1959, TV-series)) as a suspicious doctor, and great Italian actor/director Vittorio De Sica (Men and Noblemen/Uomini e Nobiluomini (1959)) as an Italian major. The film also has beautiful images of Milan, Switzerland etc.
But the lavish epic's second half does require strong nerves to take: The romance here turns too extravagant and unrealistic, SPOILER and the inevitable death is drawn out excessively. So the problem may lie mainly in screenwriter Ben Hecht's (Trapeze (1956)) work. Though Hecht penned scripts for many certified masterpieces and great films, he was also highly productive, and with impressive 165 writing credits, there is naturally a healthy dose of slush in there as well.
The movie is directed by Hollywood Golden Age filmmaker, Austrian-Hungarian Charles Vidor (Gilda (1946)).

Related post:

Charles Vidor: The Bridge/The Spy (1929) - Time-playing fine short debut of Charles Vidor

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 4.3 mil. $
Box office: 6.9 mil. $ (worldwide rentals by 1958) - final gross reportedly 20 mil. $
= Big flop at release - later reportedly became a big hit
[A Farewell to Arms was released 14 December (North America) and runs 152 minutes. Power-producer Selznick wanted for long to make a film of Hemingway's novel, and bartered with Warner Bros. for the rights in return for his foreign rights to A Star Is Born (1937). Selznick hired master director John Huston (The Kremlin Letter (1970)), but the two fell out before shooting, and Vidor was hired instead, although he also had a hard time collaborating with Selznick. Shooting took place in Italy, including in Rome's Cinecittà Studios. Hemingway was to be paid a 50k $ bonus, if the film made profits, but the Nobel Laureate was incensed at Selznick's hiring his 38 year-old wife Jones for the novel's 24 year-old nurse character and told him to "take all of that money down to the local bank, have it converted to nickels, and then shove them up your ass until they come out your mouth." US critics lambasted the film upon its release, and Selznick never recovered his costs for the film, which became his last, but it did eventually make Fox money. The film was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar (De Sica), lost to Red Buttons for Sayonara and also won a National Board of Review award. Vidor returned with one last film, Song without End (1960)). Hudson returned in Twilight for the Gods (1958); Jones in Tender Is the Night (1962), and De Sica in Holiday Island/Vacanze a Ischia (1957). A Farewell to Arms is rotten at 0 % with a 3.9/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Vidor's A Farewell to Arms?