The Oscar Project #25: The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

by Chris Marshall:

The Greatest Show on Earth is definitely not great, and I’m not entirely convinced it took place on Earth. The circus is a bizarre, frightening place that shares only the most basic similarities with our planet; it is populated by humans, some of which look like people you’ve actually seen before in your life. Most do not.

1952’s Best Picture winner allows you to spend over two and a half hours with this collection of life forms, and I, at least, did not feel particularly enriched for having done so. The whole thing takes place within the confines of a traveling circus. While some children may dream of running away and joining circus, I wanted nothing more than to run away from the circus itself and never go back.

The best I can tell, the movie is just an excuse to show various unrelated circus acts in glorious Technicolor, but there is a main story holding everything together (very loosely). There’s a love triangle—just like every other Oscar winner, it seems like—except this one is a little different because it involves Charlton Heston[1] and two trapeze artists. Everything was going fine between Brad (Heston) and Holly until The Great Sebastian, the world’s premiere trapeze act, joined the tour. But Sebastian, quite typically for a Frenchman, ruined everything.

The Oscar Project #15: Mrs. Miniver (1942)

by Chris Marshall:

We are now into the heart of World War II. Mrs. Miniver was the first Best Picture winner produced after the United States became involved in the war, and it was also the first winner to mention the war at all. Casablanca and The Best Years of Our Lives will also involve the war, but they are set before and after American involvement.

Mrs. Miniver, on the other hand, takes place right in the middle of wartime London. Miniver herself is a housewife, her son is in the Air Force, and her husband was an architect who volunteered his boat (and himself) to evacuate some troops from Dunkirk. As you might expect, the son is called off to war and thus separated from his girlfriend, who is the daughter of a rich person they know somehow or another.

Is any of this sounding familiar? It’s very different in form and tone, but the storyline of middle-class child (whose family still somehow has its own maid and cook) falling in love with the child of rich family is basically the same thing as You Can’t Take It With You. Yes, the genders are reversed, and neither actor has the charm of Jimmy Stewart or Jean Arthur, but the similarities are still striking, right down to the feelings of superiority displayed by the wealthy parent(s).

The Oscar Project #11: You Can't Take It With You

by Chris Marshall:

Frank Capra did it again with this one. He also directed 1934’s winner, It Happened One Night, which was a masterpiece. You Can’t Take It with You doesn’t quite reach the same level of quality, but it is once again a fun, endearing watch.

With Capra, you always know what you’re going to get: sentimental, heartwarming fare for the entire family. But he shouldn’t be remembered exclusively for schmaltz; he was a master of economical storytelling.

Here’s the set-up. Rich banker (Jimmy Stewart) is canoodling with middle-class secretary (Jean Arthur). The banker’s snooty mother walks in and turns her nose up in disapproval. Secretary goes home to her eccentric, fun-loving, carefree household. Rich banker proposes, but she won’t accept until she knows his parents approve. Boom! In three easy steps, your plot is laid out for you.

This isn’t to say there weren’t more complicated developments. Even though it was so easy to see it coming, I LOLed at the plotline in which the secretary’s father, a fireworks maker, decides to send out samples of his work along with a red promotional card reading “The revolution is coming!” The confusion (and arrest) that follows sets up the third act, and while you see it playing out so far advance, it’s still very satisfying when everything comes to a head.