writers_reign I acquired this via a boxed set of six Rita Hayworth films offered at a ridiculous price. Like the majority of boxed sets there were a couple of half-decent efforts - in this case Gilda, You'll Never Get Rich and The Lady From Shanghai, plus a couple of dogs. Circuses have never appealed to me, I can take or leave Duke Wayne and Claudia Cardinale; Lloyd Nolan is invariably good but he seldom if ever carried a film, and Rita was down to third billing so I didn't figure I was missing much. Now that I've finally seen it it's not as bas as it might have been, which is not the same as saying I'll watch it again. Rita arguably comes off best, not least in her early scenes where she plays a character who has lost her self-respect and more or less has to act as opposed to just looking glamorous. The plot dredges up just about every cliché there is, Richard Conte is wasted and that's about all there is to say.

schaffermatt54 I watched this, for the first time since it was in theatres when I was 10, on YouTube in HD720 letterboxed at 2.20:1 on my internet-capable Blu-Ray player - the picture quality was outstanding. It was a different kind of role for Duke and, despite the obvious fact that it's not one of his or Hathaway's best, I found it enjoyable for a variety of reasons. Besides Wayne, there's Claudia Cardinale, John Smith whom I remembered from "Laramie" and one of my favorites, Lloyd Nolan. Not to mention Rita Hayworth. I enjoyed Jack Hildyard's beautiful photography and wish more films had been photographed in Technirama - it was such a versatile format, very high quality like VistaVision. I didn't let the picture's script shortcomings bother me - for my money (none!), they just didn't matter - or the probable fact that, if all it took to capsize a ship at the dock was a bunch of people rushing over to the side rail, it never would've survived an ocean crossing. Heck, it's make-believe, and it has ample verisimilitude to satisfy me. Just kick back and enjoy it.

kosmasp It's not an in depth look behind the scenes of a circus. But you will get to see a few things that you might not have known. The core is the story of Wayne and his family. His two families so to speak. It's nicely told, even if some things seem to happen just like that, without much of a problem (or the problem being resolved too easily).There are quite a few stunts on hand here and they are decent enough. Though sometimes when John Waynes character is doing risky things, it is so obviously not John Wayne but his stunt man, that it almost hurts. That is of course something that should not be a big problem. Or do not let it be one, if you can.

GJValent One of the previous poster's referred to this NOT being a Cinerama film. He's right, it's not. However, he alludes to it having been advertised as such in some cities. Chicago was one of those. Circus World premiered in Chicago at the McVicker Theater on Madison just west of State. (That theater had previously screened How the West was Won, a TRUE Cinerama film. HTWWW ran there for what seemed to be a year before moving to the neighborhood theaters.) As stated, they had three screens to fill. The newspaper ads even used the Cinerama trademark, (the accordion folded logo). A friend saw it there with his parents, and all he talked about was the ship capsizing sequence. I saw the flick on TV, and, that seemed very anti-climactic. All in all a pretty underwhelming film. One big fluke, near the beginning, John Wayne is being wheeled around the circus ring on top of a stagecoach at full speed. He then shoots burning lamps (or something) off the tops of poles held by assistants in front of the stands full of spectators. Um, wouldn't the bullets being fired hit at least some of those folks behind the targets ? Maybe my memory isn't so good.