Summary
A very boring circus (run by the truly frightening Joan Crawford) is enlivened by a series of murders. The cold-blooded Ms. Crawford takes full advantage of the publicity this creates, but is she more deeply involved? Will her romance (with a side of blackmail) with a beefy tightrope walker interfere with her plans? Will a contrived deus ex machina show up at the last minute to wrap things up? Step right up and find out!
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
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Barbara's Rant
Poor Joan Crawford. Her outfits alone are reason enough to watch this movie, and she struts through the movie with bitchy aplomb. She's even kind of sympathetic at times, but wow does she look awful. Like, can't come within five feet of open flames because her hair shellac will catch file and her makeup will melt kind of awful. In certain shots, she doesn't even look human. It's horrifying, and sad, and ridiculous. Although I can only hope that my legs look that good when I'm 64.
Even with the terrifying makeup, she was clearly way too good for the Magnificent Hawkins (bwah!), her supposed love interest. I say supposed, because I refuse to accept that she fell for his scheme to gain control of the circus. This is a woman who, upon witnessing the grisly murder of her long-time business partner (the famous and totally ridiculous spike-in-the-head scene), calmly returns to their office and destroys all evidence of his ownership of the circus, and then goes back to bed and waits for someone else to find the body. And I'm supposed to believe that she immediately caves to Hawkins' blackmail and hands him partial ownership? And that she's stupid enough to believe that his romantic attentions are anything more than a ploy to gain control? And that she's stupid enough not to notice that she's way too good for him, anyway? No, I'd rather just believe that she was just stringing him along until she could get rid of him neatly.
Of course, she may be an efficient businesswoman, but I really think she ought to spend some time reworking her acts. For one thing, they maintain an awful lot of exotic animals for a circus that's supposed to be short on cash. Maybe she wouldn't have to rely on the murder publicity if she didn't have feed an entire herd of elephants and eight lions. The poodles can stay, they probably don't eat much. But more importantly, she should really do something about the fact that her circus is really, really boring. Aside from the previously mentioned dancing poodles (who are awfully cute, although I could have done without the wacky music), her acts are slow, tedious, and only derive tension from the fact that the performers don't look like they know what they're doing.
The prime example of this, of course, is the repellent Magnificent Hawkins (and I hope that you can see the air quotes I'm putting around Magnificent). I'm sure that it's very difficult to walk across a wire, whether it's above a field of bayonets or not. That doesn't mean it's interesting to watch, especially if the entire act consists of an unappealing guy in tight pants sucking in his gut and lurching unsteadily back and forth. I suppose he does add some excitement by giving every appearance that he's about to fall off, but I thought that point of athletic acts was to astound the audience with the performer's skill and grace, not make them cover their eyes and pray that they're not going to witness a cannonball from two stories up. And they consider this uncoordinated yutz to be their prime attraction? All I can say is, they must stop in some really boring towns.
BARBARA MAY
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