Circus World
Tags: revenge

Plot synopsis:
Matt Masters (John Wayne), a Wild West circus star in the mold of Buffalo Bill Cody, bought a bankrupt circus in 1885 and successfully rebuilt it into a combination three ring and Wild West extravaganza, mixing Wild West Show acts with conventional circus acts in a winning combination. He has successfully toured the United States for more than a decade. Now that the century is about to turn, he wants to take his show to Europe.
His Circus Boss, Cap Carson (Lloyd Nolan), is against taking the show across the Atlantic. He maintains that Europe is bad luck for American circuses. He also calls Matt on his reason for making a European tour: Masters wants to find the lost great love of his life, Lili Alfredo (Rita Hayworth), and figures that this tour will smoke her out if for no other reason than to see her child, Toni Alfredo (Claudia Cardinale), Masters' adopted daughter. One of his Western stars and wannabe-partner, Steve McCabe (John Smith), also attempts to dissuade Masters, but to no avail. Masters buys a freighter, renames her the Circus Maximus, and the show sails for Europe.
At Barcelona, the first port of call, the Circus Maximus capsizes at the pier and puts the show in the toilet. Masters has to release most of his performers, board out his animals, and go back to performing an act for the Ed Purdy Wild West Show, a staple on the European circus circuit. Down but not out, Masters doesn't waste the disaster. "While touring Europe at Ed Purdy's expense," as Masters puts it, he, Cap, Steve and Toni scout acts that will enable Masters to relaunch the Matt Masters Circus bigger and better than ever.
His first new hire is Tojo the Clown and the Wire-Dancing Ballerina (Richard Conte and Katharyna respectively). They have a unique act; Tojo is dressed as a clown but walks the high wire over a cage full of lions while coaching the Ballerina (his niece Giovanna) as she dances on a wire on the ground. Backstage, Masters discovers that Tojo is an old acquaintance — Aldo Alfredo, brother-in-law of his lost love Lili Alfredo. Despite his reservations at hiring a possible enemy Masters takes the act on and neither he nor Aldo admit to Toni, who is Aldo's niece, that they have met before; or that Tojo the Clown is her uncle. Aldo assures Matt that the vendetta is over, and Giovanna begins training for the ballerina act she will perform on the high wire.
His second new act is Emile, a French animal trainer who has a spectacular act involving lions who lie down on him in the ring. Masters offers to take him on if he will switch from lions to tigers (Masters has many tigers but few lions). The trainer is adamant that he does not want to change to working with tigers; his wife persuades him to do so. By the time the circus is ready to re-launch, Emile has so adapted to working with a different variety of big cat that when a couple become ill, he demands that Masters hire a doctor for "HIS tigers."
The third addition to the performers' roster is Margo Angeli, an artist of the high trapeze, coincidentally where Toni wants to work instead of in the Wild West show or as part of Clown Alley, where Matt has her working. In reality, Margo is the vanished Lili Alfredo, haunted by the guilt of having been caught up in a love triangle, blaming herself for the death of her flyer husband who had fallen — or did he miss Aldo's catch on purpose after learning he was part of a love triangle? She had run away from the world of the circus and kept on running, finding solace first in the Church and then in the bottle.
As Masters had hoped, the lure of her daughter brought Lili out of hiding. She speaks to her daughter during a performance of Ed Purdy's Wild West Show without identifying herself, and Masters spots her. The two have an intense confrontation in a bar, ending with Masters slamming a full bottle of brandy down in front of Lili and telling her that she needs to decide whether the booze or her child is more important to her; but that if she doesn't pull herself together, as far as he's concerned she is dead to him. Lili quits drinking and goes into training to seek a position in the new Matt Masters Circus, then in winter quarters near Madrid.
Meanwhile, Toni has fallen for Steve and he for her, despite a difference in their ages of at least a decade. Matt has to come to terms with the fact that his adopted little girl is a woman grown, with a mind of her own. "Margo's" reappearance helps, and she is secretly amused by Toni's attempts to pair her off with Matt. Matt's doing pretty well on his own, as Toni observes with pleasure. She loves her adopted father and wants him to be happy.
Inevitably, the truth comes out. The afternoon of the rehearsal for the first show of the circus season in Vienna, with Masters demanding of his performers the same show they will put on that evening, Toni finds a poster of The Flying Alfredos in her wagon living quarters with "Suicide" daubed on it in red. She also finds a newspaper clipping of the Flying Alfredos that allows her to identify "Margo" as her mother. There is a stormy confrontation with many passionate, hateful words on Toni's part between her, Lili and Matt; and Matt has to tell her that he was the second man in the love triangle. Toni curses both of them and runs out, just before a bugle call summons the show to Dress Rehearsal.
The rehearsal opens to empty seats with Grand Parade, with the performers marching in behind the flags of the nations whose citizens are in the show: the United States, Great Britain, France, Imperial Germany, Switzerland, Iceland, Sweden, Italy, and many more. Partway through Grand Parade, a fire breaks out in Wardrobe and spreads to the Big Top. Fast action by Lili, Matt, Steve, Toni, Cap and Aldo prevents injury to the circus performers and manages to save about half of the tent from the flames. The one positive thing to come out of the fire is a rapprochement between Toni and Lili.
Matt somehow obtains permission from the Emperor to set up the circus in the grounds of the Imperial Palace. The show is a smash success, with a new act headlining: Lili and Toni Alfredo performing a swing-over routine fifty feet in the air. Ultimately Matt, Lili, Toni, and Matt's new partner and Toni's new fiancé, Steve, are shown taking bows to the applause of the people and the Crown.

Review: Too bad the old champ wasn't there that day or it would have been a perfect Sunday.Seeing it now on a formatted VHS the awesomeness of the spectacle during the scenes of the circus fires and the capsized ship in the harbor is really lost.
It's quite an eyeful and should only be scene in theaters.And the film would be revived, but we have a subdued John Wayne here and it's not for the better.
Read the Capra autobiography to find out exactly what they were, but they weren't fully fixed in the final product by director Henry Hathaway who later piloted the Duke to his Oscar in True Grit.John Wayne was a guy who was usually very careful to give the public the Duke they expected.
The people went to see John Wayne, but they didn't get their money's worth.Pity because it would have been great to see John Wayne with Rita Hayworth in a great film.
That couldn't have happened when they were younger because of Rita's contract with Columbia pictures and Wayne's personal boycotting of that studio because of his dislike for Harry Cohn.
That story I won't go into.Rita Hayworth who doesn't enter into the film until almost halfway through is fine as Wayne's lost love.
Lloyd Nolan as Wayne's sidekick is always good.Richard Conte is Hayworth's brother-in-law and Cardinale's uncle.
This fine actor is wasted here in a part that either was badly written or left on the cutting room floor.John Smith was a Wayne protégé of sorts, Wayne gave him an early break in The High and the Mighty which he produced.
Smith went on to star in the Laramie TV series and on completion of that he was cast opposite Cardinale, probably at Wayne's insistence.
Slow moving and overlong film upon circus world with the great John Wayne.
The movie talks about a circus employer (a proprietor beset by problems called Matt Masters well played by John Wayne who was suffering from the early stages of lung cancer) who decides to take his show on a European tour along with his fostered daughter (a gorgeous Claudia Cardinale) and her lover (John Smith) .
Meanwhile , the Circus owner searches for the mother of his adopted daughter , who disappeared years before , she is a trapeze artiste (a veteran Rita Hayworth) who bears a dark secret that originates the drama .In the picture there is a love story , circus show , melodrama in which protagonists are caught in emotional conflicts , but it isn't fast movement and that's why it is a little boring and dreary .
Mille with Charlton Heston resulted to be much better and obtained several Oscars , while ¨Circus world¨ , a typical John Wayne film , was a real flop and failed in the box office and didn't achieve success at nowhere .
In spite of the numerous and famous screenwriters : Ben Hetch's last film , Philip Jordan Nicholas Ray and James Edward Grant (who John Wayne insisted to be brought to rewrite it) , the plot is confusing and embarrassing .
The picture finished to sink the Samuel Bronston's empire along with ¨The fall of the Roman Empire¨ because of both movies didn't make money .
Support cast is frankly good , such as : Rita Hayworth , John Smith , Richard Conte , Jose Maria Caffarel , Milles Malleson and Lloyd Nolan replaced David Niven who was originally cast as Cap Carson .
The movie was regularly directed by Henry Hathaway , though Frank Capra began this project but he turned it down due to he wanted to use his own script .
Big John Wayne played for Hathaway various films as ¨The sons of Katie Elder (65), ¨Circus World (64) ¨ certainly not one of his memorable movies , ¨How the west was won (62) ¨, ¨ North to Alaska (60)¨ , but his greatest hit smash was ¨True grit (69)¨ in which Wayne won his only Academy Award .
Although Hathaway was a highly successful and reliable director film-making within the Hollywood studio system , his work has received little consideration from reviewers .
The motion picture will appeal to John Wayne and circus fans .
Some sources claim Samuel Bronston's "Circus World" was filmed in Cinerama.
That is, unless you consider the fact it contributed to the collapse of producer Samuel Bronston's short-lived film empire to be a good thing.It, along with its' sister 1964 Bronston mega-production, "The Fall of The Roman Empire", served to sink the producer's four year Spanish production company and end his fairly short career as a film mogul.
As far as John Wayne go, The Magnificent Showman is not among the best like The Searchers, Fort Apache and The Quiet Man. But he has also done worse in his career as seen(in my opinion that is) with The Conqueror, Brannigan and The Green Berets.
There are also some scenes that hold up well and entertain, particularly worth of note are the climatic fire and the capsizing of the circus ship, both scenes are full of excitement and tension.The Magnificent Showman was begun as Circus World, directed by Frank Capra.
And while I wasn't that impressed really with the acting, two performances do stand out- Rita Hayworth and Claudia Cardinale.
Just for the record, I think Cardinale just about wins the contest.These aside, I was divided personally on the performance of John Wayne.
However, for my liking his delivery of the lines seemed rather stiff and there were times where I couldn't help thinking he was too old for the role.The film is too long, at 133 minutes it is very lengthy.
"Circus World" (1964), a grandiose Cinerama film directed by a Hollywood veteran Henry Hathaway, is a paradoxical case.
The story is very simple (an untold past tragedy casts its shadow on the present as a circus director, played by John Wayne, tries to create a successful show in Europe where he is reunited by his former lover, played by Rita Hayworth), but there's more than that to the film.By this I do not mean that Hathaway had elaborated a subtle subtext to the film in question or anything like that.
First of all, "Circus World" is a film directed, written, and starred by old Hollywood legends.
"Circus World", on the other hand, is as though a posthumous legacy, in a somewhat similar sense as "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1961).
Moreover, the film takes place in the early 20th century and dives into the nostalgic world of the circus which often represents a carefree existence of play and work (closely studied in the film of Federico Fellini, for one).
While the historical setting seems to echo the film's own production time in this sense (reminiscing about the good old days before the world wars, semi-analogous to the good old days of Hollywood), the film's melancholic tone is further enhanced by the fates of its leading stars.
It is well-known that "Circus World" was not only the last film John Wayne made before his lung cancer operation but also the first film where Hayworth's alleged Alzheimer's disease started acting up, causing numerous problems with production.
It is as if everyone involved had been through their best days, inevitably casting an impact on the quality of the film in question as well, but still came together to perform in the wild circus world.
Worth seeing for the odd pairing of John Wayne and Rita Hayworth.
They actually interact well but Rita's part is minor considering her star status, by this point she was beginning to really suffer with memory loss and her scenes were a trial to complete, and the story is weak.
Claudia is lovely but totally unbelievable as Duke's daughter speaking with her natural Italian accent while supposedly being raised by him, he of course talks like John Wayne.
Not a terrible film but diffuse and without a strong point of view, that may be because the production was fraught with issues, begun by Frank Capra and finished by Henry Hathaway there was no clear vision to the shape what the film was supposed to offer..
Besides Wayne, there's Claudia Cardinale, John Smith whom I remembered from "Laramie" and one of my favorites, Lloyd Nolan.
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.
If you like John Wayne playing "The Duke" here he is.
I have seen many movies by John Wayne and some movies many, many times.
Just enjoy the film for what it is, a movie, not reality.
I´m a big John Wayne Fan but this movie is very boring.
John Wayne is acting like he thought the same in 1964.
Endless scenes with animals, clowns and artists (one of them Rita Hayworth who looks like she will fall asleep every moment, too).
One of the movies of John Wayne you don´t need to see..
Apart from JET PILOT and THE CONQUERER, this is my choice for worst John Wayne film once he became a bona fide star.
Sure, some of his very early B-movies were rough and silly, but considering he was young and had little star power, I wouldn't count these films.
CIRCUS WORLD, on the other hand just isn't any fun.
While Claudia Cardinale is a lovely woman, she was 102% wrong for the film.
She is supposed the to be the daughter of an American and an Italian who was raised since a very early age by John Wayne in the United States.
She sounds NOTHING like Wayne (who raised her) or her mother (Rita Hayworth--who abandoned her) or her long-dead Italian father.
For example, late in the film, Cardinale goes nuts and tells Wayne and Hayworth that she hates them.
For example, the identity of who painted over the posters and how the fire began all seem to be forgotten by the time the movie ends...as well as exactly who hates Wayne and Hayworth so much...as well as why there was the affair many years ago (Wayne keeps saying that he'll have to explain it all to her...and never does).
And,...well,...that's it.A bad film, even if John Wayne lovers would disagree.
I love most of his films, but I'm calling it like I see it--a big, bloated, overblown mess.
And, by the way, Wayne is completely miscast as well--what is this great western star doing running a circus that goes on tour to Europe?!?
By the way, my wife adds that SOMEONE must have had some incriminating pictures of Wayne to get him to make this film.
I'm a big John Wayne fan and I had never heard of the film.
Basically all it is is Wayne dealing with a lot of problems trying to put up a circus.
John Wayne and Rita Hayworth are not very good in this movie.
"Circus World", generally known in Britain as "The Magnificent Showman" was one of a number of films on a circus theme made during the fifties and sixties as filmmakers sought to cash in on the spectacle and drama of the Big Top. DeMille's "The Greatest Show on Earth" is possibly the best-known, but "The Big Circus" is another well-known example.
All three films are large-scale spectaculars and all three have for their central character the figure of the circus owner or manager, played in "The Greatest Show..." by Charlton Heston, in "The Big Circus" by Victor Mature and here by John Wayne.
Most circus dramas involve the company touring America by train, but here Wayne's character, Matt Masters, decides to take his circus on a tour of Europe.
At one time it would have been unthinkable for the clean-cut John Wayne to have been cast as a man involved in an adulterous affair, let alone an adulterous affair which led to the death of the cuckolded husband.
Wayne is not bad as Masters, but this is not really one of his great films.
Rita Hayworth as Lili was still strikingly attractive for a woman in her mid-forties, but again this is not one of her better films.
Overall, "The Magnificent Showman" (I will use the British title with which I am more familiar) has some entertaining and exciting passages, but does not really say anything new about its circus theme which had not already been said in similar films.
This lack of originality may have been one reason why the circus genre fell from favour in the seventies and eighties, although there have been occasional revivals since in films like "Water for Elephants".
But CIRCUS WORLD star John Wayne chose his projects carefully (no, he's NOT the killer clown, as you might guess), and he was sharp enough to realize that if half the geezers with one foot in an old folks home Ponied up to see this flick, he'd be able to corner the market on Panamanian shrimp (which he did, in Real Life).
If you told a bunch of screenwriters the plot of CIRCUS WORLD, they'd tell you that it would be a real stretch to pad out such thin material to as long as a 90-minute film.
CIRCUS WORLD is a lavish bit of spectacle that acts as a nice showcase for John Wayne's naturalistic talents.
He plays a circus owner who decides to bring his Wild West act to Europe with disastrous consequences, forcing him to go on a journey of self-realisation that sees him hooking up and making amends for his old life.I'm not a huge fan of circuses in cinema unless they're used for horror and suspense flicks, in which case they become a great setting (watch CIRCUS OF HORRORS and CIRCUS OF FEAR to see what I mean).
However, Henry Hathaway shoots the Big Top very well here, and his circus scenes are filled with excitement.
I can leave the cruel animal bits but the high wire acts are fantastic, the bits with the clowns are funny, and the Wild West show at the film's opening recalls BEN HUR-style spectacle.Wayne is the figure who holds this all together with a dauntless man-of-action performance.
He's joined by a slightly tragic past-her-prime Rita Hayworth, who still impresses as his lost love, and Claudia Cardinale who is a vision of beauty as his adopted daughter.
The film looks expensive and despite the slow pace it keeps you watching from beginning to end, never failing to entertain despite the odd shortcoming..
I finally saw this film on you tube recently.It was very sharp excellent print.Unless my memory is fuzzy,I think I had saw it on television too,I had not seen it since I first saw it at the state theater in 65, in El Paso Texas.This was not a road show print .It was mono and regular scope.The Irony is we had the Capri theater that showed Cinerama ,but it did not premiered there.This later version ,I saw, a road show print ,restored from the Technirama original negative.It had intermission music , for some reason in mono sound.Enter Acte music and exit music.It was very entertaining,but not John Wayne's best.Some time the voices got out of sync .The Polka music in the Celebrating for getting the tent party,by Dimitri Tomkin,Sounded exactly like the same music used in the fair sequence in ,"Friendly Persuasion.This better print sounded a lot better than the theatrical mono print.The story is just fair ,not great.You never understood why the ship tipped over all of sudden.This was created to take advantage 8 Perf 35 mm Technirama wide film and for the effects of the artificial Cinerama presentation.Bronson believed in spectacle in his films ,but at the cost of common economical sense,which led to his downfall as a producer,when he began to loose money on his films.One thing is you never saw Purdey character at the Colonel Purdy's wild West show.You never know who sent that article about The Death of Toni Alfredo's father to Toni and who started the fire,Was it Conti's character?that was another problem in the film.In spite of it all it was still worth watching.Too bad a Blu- ray version wasn't available on the u.s. 09/11/16.
I acquired this via a boxed set of six Rita Hayworth films offered at a ridiculous price.
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.
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.
U.K. release title: The MAGNIFICENT SHOWMAN.SYNOPSIS: In the early 1900's, an American impresario takes his circus to Europe.
Acting is more creditable than usual under Hathaway's direction, despite the weak and familiar plot, the tedious dialogue and unresolved drama (presumably Conte started the fire and planted the stuff in Claudia Cardinale's dressing room, but after his dramatic impingement into Hayworth's opening shot at trapeze practice, he virtually disappears.Claudia herself is perhaps a little too enthusiastically vivacious and Mr. Smith is far too much of an eager-beaver, but Hayworth's restrained performance holds her scenes together.
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.
One big fluke, near the beginning, John Wayne is being wheeled around the circus ring on top of a stagecoach at full speed.