Circus World (1964)
John Wayne Wild Across the World!
Genre : Drama
Runtime : 2H 15M
Director : Henry Hathaway
Writer : Ben Hecht
Synopsis
Circus owner Matt Masters is beset by disasters as he attempts a European tour of his circus. At the same time, he is caught in an emotional bind between his adopted daughter and her mother.
A child is born. We see underwater swimmers representing this. He is young, in a jungle setting, with two fanciful "instincts" guiding him as swooping bird-like acrobats initially menace, then delight. As an adolescent, he enters a desert, where a man spins a large cube of metal tubing. He leaves his instinct-guides behind, and enters a garden where two statues dance in a pond. As he watches their sensual acrobatics of love, he becomes a man. He is offered wealth (represented by a golden hat) by a devil figure. In a richly decorated room, a scruffy troupe of a dozen acrobats and a little girl reawaken the old man's youthful nature and love.
An idealistic, modern-day cowboy struggles to keep his Wild West show afloat in the face of hard luck and waning interest.
Gunslinger Annie Oakley romances fellow sharpshooter Frank Butler as they travel with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.
The Chinese consider the lion a symbol of good luck, so it's a half-dragon, half-lion – a dralion – that is the symbol of the East-meets-West fusion of this performance in which 36 Chinese acrobats join the renowned Canadian troupe. Celebrating the four elements as represented in four colours – blue (air), green (water), red (fire) and ochre (earth) – Dralion combines ancient Chinese circus traditions with Cirque du Soleil's usual stunning elements: the techno-oriented single ring; the multicoloured lights and costumes; the music that mixes rock, New Age and various world influences (though not Chinese); and the madcap clowns that pull a victim out of the audience.
A family of aerialists decides to go after the $250,000 prize being offered to any group that can execute a complicated trapeze maneuver. However, personal dramas and financial difficulties soon threaten to overtake the flyers' pursuit of the elusive quadruple somersault. The film received a Robert Award as the best Danish film of 1985.
A European circus family is torn apart by greed and jealousy.
A circus owner tries to keep his financially troubled circus on the road, despite the efforts of a murderous saboteur who has decided that the show must not go on.
While working at a circus, a man hypnotizes a trapezist to kill her partner.
When Polly Fisher, a circus aerialist, is hurt while performing, she is taken to the house of a nearby minister, John Hartley. As she recuperates, they fall in love with each other and secretly marry. But when the truth leaks out , John's congregation rebels at having a circus woman as their minister's wife, and he is fired. Polly decides to leave John in hopes of giving back to him the calling that means so much to him. But fate steps in and rearranges all plans.
Director George Sherman's 1959 circus drama stars Michael Callan as a cocky aerialist causing romantic problems under the Big Top.
Odd little circus film about trapeze artists and obsessive love.
A loud-mouthed Texas cowpuncher tries his hand at polo finding himself at odds with high society and trying to save a floundering Wild West show.
The circus provides the backdrop for this melodrama that chronicles the lives of four children raised within the big top. Film historian and collector William K. Everson stated that the only surviving print was lost by actress Mary Duncan who had borrowed it from Fox Studios. In the December 1974 issue of "Films in Review," he explained that Mary Duncan, one of the film's stars, wanted it to show to a group of friends in Florida. The star was aware that it was a dangerous nitrate print and assumed that Fox had others. She threw the only copy in the ocean, a mistake characterized by Everson as "a monumental blunder to rank with Balaclava, Sarajevo, and the Fall of Babylon as one of history's blackest moments."
In Las Vegas, Lucky and two of her girlfriends, Carol and Lisa, plan to steal half a million dollars from the sadistic manager of the Circus Circus Casino. A shadowy man is their contact and organizer. Each of the women could be a weak link in a scheme that has to be flawless: Lucky's boyfriend is a security officer at the casino, Lisa is a trapeze artist who's now plagued with vertigo, and Carol is in debt to a nasty thug - plus, as a Black woman, she's subject to additional harassment. Can the gals pull off the heist, or is the plan, with it's mysterious organizer, too complicated to succeed?
A French PR man (Terence de Marney) and his girlfriend (Phyllis Dixey) steal a lottery ticket from twin trapeze artists (Herbert Lom), prompting murder.
A cobbler gets a job in a Circus as a janitor, recommended by the beautiful girl rider of the show. But later, he gets in trouble when he involves in dangerous acts, such as the trapeze. Obviously, our friend will risk his life by the love of his new girlfriend.
Hélène and Aldo Giovanni are a circus trapeze double act and a couple. Aldo is temporarily replaced by former-partner Alexandre when the former is injured. The two get into a fight and the following day Alexandre is discovered dead. Hélène suspects her husband is responsible for the murder.
Bugs Bunny is hired to perform in Colonel Korny's Circus alongside Bruno the Magnificent, the Slobokian Acrobatic Bear, but Bruno doesn't want to share the limelight.
Acrobat Eddie Marsh is in the army now. His first act is to become friendly with Kathryn Jones, the colonel's pretty daughter. Their romance hits a few snags, including disapproval from her father. Eddie's also plagued by fear of having an accident during his family's trapeze act in the army variety show, which also features a gallery of MGM stars.
Buffalo Bill plans to put on his own Wild West sideshow, and Chief Sitting Bull has agreed to appear in it. However, Sitting Bull has his own hidden agenda, involving the President and General Custer.
