The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and Circus of Horrors (1960)

by Fiona Underhill

“The circus is a massive machine whose very life depends on discipline, motion and speed 
— that meets calamity again and again, but always comes up smiling 
— a place where disaster and tragedy stalk the Big Top and ride the circus train 
— where Death is constantly watching for one frayed rope, one weak link, or one trace of fear.”

-from the start of Greatest Show on Earth

The notion of ‘running away to join the circus’ has been around for as long as circuses have. Leaving your troubles behind, perhaps assuming a new identity and starting with a fresh life certainly has its appeal. Especially in the 1950s, when the societal pressure to have the perfect job, house, family and consumer goods was high. Two films of this era feature medical doctors who make ‘mistakes’ – driven by either compassion or hubris – and assume new identities in traveling circuses. Doctors have one of the most respected positions in society and obviously one of enormous faith and trust, especially at this time, when it was much more common for doctors to make house calls. The idea of doctors betraying that trust would have been shocking, leading to shame and being ostracized from society. And who are a group of people already living on the fringes, as outcasts? Traveling groups of entertainers – theatrical troupes, circuses or those working for carnivals and fairs. 

The Greatest Show on Earth is a Cecil B DeMille epic that was a huge success at both the box office and the Oscars. It used real performers from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus troupes as extras and also to help train the actors who had more starring roles. Despite being a mainstream success, The Greatest Show on Earth has some surprisingly subversive elements and Buttons the Clown’s (James Stewart) side-plot gets darker than might be expected. The fact that Buttons wears his clown make-up at all times, even when not in the ring is accepted as an eccentricity by his fellow performers. But it gradually transpires that, like many who have run away to join the circus, he has adopted this mask as a disguise. Buttons was in fact a doctor who helped end the life of his terminally-ill wife and is now wanted by the authorities. Before watching this Technicolor spectacular of a film, I would not have guessed that euthanasia would be a sub-plot.

The doctor who features in British horror Circus of Horrors, on the other hand, is more in the ‘mad scientist’ vein of Doctor Frankenstein. In 1947, British plastic surgeon Rossiter (Anton Diffring), obsessed with perfecting his technique, botches an operation and goes on the run to France. He adopts the moniker Schuler and the film leaps forward ten years, to where he has decided that a circus is a good cover for him to continue his experiments. This is because the circus is full of criminals or victims of crime (eg. a prostitute who has had her face slashed with a knife) or disabled/disfigured people who have been shunned by society – all of which makes them fodder for him to create a ‘Temple of Beauty’ which in fact is more of a ‘Theatre of Cruelty.’ This is an interesting twist on the 19th century concept of the ‘Freak Show’ which actively encouraged those who looked different from the ‘norm’ to join up to be a traveling spectacle – to be gawked at by baying crowds. Schuler prides himself on creating the most beautiful circus in the world, where the performers are as close to physical perfection as he can make them – of course, he is actually creating his own kind of ‘freaks.’

The notion of assuming a role or character in the circus, transforming oneself and adopting a mask or disguise (or literally changing your face in the case of Circus of Horrors) are interesting themes explored in these two films. Both Buttons and Schuler attempt to escape their pasts, but their pasts eventually catch up with them. They are very much a mirror image of one another – Button is selfless, he risks his own freedom in order to help others. Schuler is entirely selfish, exploiting vulnerable people for his own ends. Interestingly, it is not for monetary reward, but his obsession with achieving physical perfection through experimentation. Considering that Circus of Horrors takes place in the aftermath of WWII, I don’t think it is too much of a leap to suggest that Schuler would have been a proponent of eugenics. I’m not convinced that sadism is his primary motive, even though the film is considered to be the third entry in (the production company) Anglo-Amalgamated's "Sadian trilogy" because the films focus on sadism, cruelty and violence (with sexual undertones). The previous films in the trilogy being Horrors of the Black Museum and Peeping Tom. Schuler has altered his own face as a disguise, which Buttons does much more crudely with clown make-up, but, ultimately, neither can hide their true selves. Buttons’s compassion for those who are suffering is his strongest instinct and one he can no longer suppress during the film’s climax. Schuler’s ever-increasing desperation to control everything and everyone around him leads to him being more and more reckless which, of course, leads to him being caught.

Recklessness is also a feature of the circus environment - high-risk and dangerous physical feats going awry are central to the plots of both films. In Greatest Show, competing trapeze artists push one another to greater and greater feats of death-defying daring and goad one another to remove the safety net. Inevitably, this leads to a bad accident. The resentments caused by love triangles also leads to railway sabotage and causes an enormous trainwreck involving the circus train. In Circus of Horrors, the fact that everyone accepts that there will be collateral damage in a circus means that Schuler can cover up the ‘accidental deaths’ he causes anytime anyone threatens to leave. Part of the appeal of running away with the circus seems to be the high-risk-high-reward lifestyle, which is certainly an alternative to the everyday routine families were being sold on wholesome 50s TV shows such as “Father Knows Best” or “Leave it to Beaver.”

This was another aspect of the allure of the circus, particularly in the 1950s - they provided a ‘found family’ if, for some reason, you did not fit into the traditional mold of the suburban family at the time. Another big part of the appeal is that the troupe doesn’t stay put in one place for very long. There are no nosy neighbors passing judgment, no keeping up with the Joneses or a picket fence that has to be maintained with fresh coats of white paint. However, the circus still has a social hierarchy that one has to fit into, with star performers that provoke competition and jealousy amongst the lower ranked troupe-members (a huge part of the plot of The Greatest Show on Earth). The potential for love affairs to turn sour is also high. If you decide you don’t want to date someone anymore, you are then trapped in a confined space with them, while you travel around. There are least two love triangles in The Greatest Show on Earth and Schuler has affairs with many members of his troupe as well. Love affairs lead to the downfall of the circus in The Greatest Show on Earth (the train crash) and lead to Schuler’s capture in Circus of Horrors, as his adopted daughter tells his secrets to her boyfriend. So, it seems there are some universal forces that cannot be escaped by running away with the circus.

The circuses of The Greatest Show on Earth and Circus of Horrors provided an alternative lifestyle to the traditional 1950s suburban family for the characters in both films and a means of escape for two doctors ‘on the lam.’ The appeal of the Cecil B. DeMille epic is the spectacular nature of the movie, which replicates the spectacle of actually going to the circus and the (much lower budget) appeal of the exploitation B-movie is the frisson of excitement, danger and titillating, tantalizing horror that comes with that genre. For the 50s and early 60s audiences watching, there was perhaps some part of them who wished they could escape along with the characters into a colorful world of clowns, trapeze artists and ring-masters. It was certainly a world away from conventional British and American society of the time (for different reasons) and one can understand why one might want to run away to join the circus.