The Big Circus

The Big Circus (1959)

Hear the New Song Hit! "THE BIG CIRCUS"

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.

Date of release
1959-07-05
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (16)
Runtime
1h 49m
Genres
Drama
Director
Joseph M. Newman

Casting

Interesting facts

The Big Circus is a 1959 American drama film directed by Joseph M. Newman and starring Victor Mature as a circus owner struggling with financial trouble and a murderous unknown saboteur. It was produced and cowritten by Irwin Allen, later known for a series of big-budget disaster films.

Production

Irwin Allen announced the film in 1957. He intended to produce and direct the film for Columbia and planned to have parts for 40 stars, in a similar manner to the way he had produced and directed The Story of Mankind. The project would eventually be undertaken by Allied Artists. It was one of Allied's most expensive movies at that date with a budget of $2 million.

Filming began in January 1959 at the MGM studios. Allen was interested in making "an exciting colorful show—something the public can't see on television."

Charles Bennett had written for Allen several times. He was called in to work on the script by Allen claiming the latter was "in a horrible mess with this guy, who is the greatest, bloody, successful ham writer in the world—Irving Wallace. Their script was awful. It had reached the stage that Columbia had told Irwin to get the hell out. They had $90,000 in it." —which wasn’t very much in those days, let’s face it.

Famed circus performer Barbette served on the film as a consultant.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended