I'm truly not a big circus fan. I think clowns are stupid, show elements with animals are morally questionable, and the acrobats usually have really annoying music playing in the background. These are certainly not the best prerequisites for “The Greatest Show on Earth,” which is regarded as the ultimate circus film.

However, I was able to get something out of the semi-documentary style. You can tell in every minute that this was an ambitious production. And it definitely becomes clear what an enormous undertaking such a circus show really is. However, the rear projections in particular were a little sloppy. Some of the actors sometimes appear transparent, which could have been avoided even with the technology of the time.

For me, however, the biggest weakness of the movie is not the technology but the story and the characters. Lead actor Charlton Heston's performance is extremely wooden, and his character Brad comes across as someone who is trying far too hard to look cool. And the main female character, Holly (Betty Hutton), is just annoying as hell.

The story itself is very easy to follow, because for a two-and-a-half-hour movie, it's so thin that you have a lot of time to process the few twists and turns. If it hadn't been for the reasonably interesting side story about the clown Buttons (James Stewart), the movie would have been a total failure on a plot level.

Overall, I can at least appreciate “The Greatest Show on Earth” for the production values. But how it managed to win the Oscar in the “Best Picture” category is beyond me.