Another movie night, two more movies.

CIRCUS WORLD (1964)  Samuel Bronston's big-top extravaganza with John Wayne, Claudia Cardinale, Rita Hayworth, Richard Conte, Lloyd Nolan and John Smith.  The score is by Dimitri Tiomkin but, except for the ethereal main title, a sort of ode to the mystery of the circus, the bulk of the score is made up of circus standards.  This was a Cinerama presentation in many venues although shot in Super Technirama 70.  It's a period piece set pre-1920 though most of the time it could as easily be set in the present.  

I know it seems like Dennis and I are watching a lot of circus movies, but this is just a coincidence.  Unless we run across a copy of CIRCUS OF HORRORS or CIRCUS OF FEAR, I think this wraps it up for circus movies on our part.

Matt Masters (John Wayne) decides to take his circus to Europe, ostensibly to show 'em how it's done but really, as his buddy Cap Carson (Nolan) suspects, to find his lost love Lili Alfredo (Rita Hayworth).  Matt has raised Lili's daughter Toni Alfredo (Claudia Cardinale) every since Lili disappeared following the death of her husband during their trapeze act fifteen years earlier.  It's believed that her husband allowed himself to make a suicidal fall during their performance because Lili was seeing another man.  Her brother-in-law, Aldo Alfredo (Richard Conte), vowed a vendetta against both her and Matt.

The first clue that Matt's European tour is ill-fated is during a dockside preview of the circus conducted aboard their ship, the Circus Maximus.  When a performer goes overboard, everyone on the ship rushes to that side and creates an imbalance.  The ship rolls over on its side sending people, animals and equipment into the brine.  Literally washed up, Matt takes a job with a Wild West show while planning a comeback with all new acts.  Searching the continent for these performers allows him to search for Lili but brings him unexpectedly into contact with Aldo.  Claiming to have forgiven the vendetta, Aldo promises to be a good boy if Matt hires him.

Eventually, as you would expect, Matt finds Lili and she joins his circus.  She is to be the new aerialist, something that interests Toni immensely.  But no one tells Toni the complicated backstory and it's up to an unknown troublemaker to plaster a newspaper article to a mirror detailing the pivotal death of her father with the word "Suicide" scrawled above it.

I saw this as a kid at a local neighborhood theater and liked it well enough.  It's got plenty of circus acts and the dramatic story is just barely strong enough to keep one's attention.  The opening is fairly strong with the boat capsizing a highlight and the film ends with both a tent fire sequence as well as a visually interesting presentation of circus acts.  The middle of the movie drags somewhat as the dramatic aspects of the film develop but overall it's entertaining enough albeit often in a corny manner.  There are a couple of genuinely affecting moments, too.

This was producer Samuel Bronston's last hurrah to epic filmmaking.  His other 1964 release, THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, tanked big-time, losing several million dollars.  CIRCUS WORLD was less expensive but also unsuccessful at the box office. 

This disc was a Korean import with good, anamorphic picture quality and stereo sound. 

THE LONG SHIPS (1964)  An Irving Allen production directed by Jack Cardiff with Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, Russ Tamblyn, Rosana Schiaffino, Edward Judd, Clifford Evans, Oskar Homolka, Lionel Jeffries, Gordon Jackson, Colin Blakely and, in an uncredited role which I did not spot, Leonard Rossiter.  Beverley Cross, of JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS fame, was one of three screenwriters.  A longtime favorite score by Dusan Radic (available as a Film Score Monthly release).  Shot in Super Technirama 70.

Rolfe (Widmark), eldest son of Krok (Homolka), sails the southern environs of the world pillaging along the way to enrich his father's impoverished coffers.  His ship is caught in a maelstrom and destroyed, leaving the intrepid Viking as the sole survivor stranded in the Islamic kingdom of Aly Manush (Poitier).  Rolfe begs in the town square by recounting the legend of the Mother of Voices, an oft told tale of a huge golden bell crafted by monks during the crusades and now residing somewhere in the land of the infidels.  Manush has made it his personal crusade to bring the bell home and believes Rolfe can lead him to it.  Rolfe, however, is an inveterate liar and after some word footsy he manages to escape.

Meanwhile, back home, Krok prepares to present King Harald (Evans) with a commissioned Viking funeral ship and receive enough gold in payment to restore his bankrupt kingdom.  But Harald deducts Krok's unpaid tribute from the past few years and leaves the grizzled, old Viking with a pittance.  Somehow, in dialogue barely mentioning some Irish sailors, Rolfe returns, having swum back to the shores of his Viking homeland.  Before you can say "fjord" he has concocted a scheme to take King Harald's ship and return for the Mother of Voices.  This means stealing the ship along with the King's personal navigator, the antagonistic Sven (Judd).

To make a long ship, er, story short, they meet up again with Manush and all proceed in search of the gold bell.  High adventure ensues.

Producer Irving (not Irwin) Allen was Cubby Broccoli's former partner back when they ran Warwick Film Productions.  After the split, Allen went into international productions before glomming onto the Matt Helm franchise.

The film is a bit schizophrenic in tone.  Widmark, and most of the cast members, play this for a lark, tongue in cheek with much low-key, ironic humor.  Poitier, on the other hand, delivers an extremely intense performance, one of great interest, but at odds with the other shenanigans of this film.  But he is a visually arresting figure, his longish hair (wig?) coiffed back while often attired in blindingly white, jewel bedecked attire.  He has one absolutely terrific moment when King Harald's daughter (Beba Loncar) is brought to his room.  He seems spring-loaded as he goes from supine to standing instantly and then adroitly flips his long, hanging sleeves so that they flip over his forearms.  I think it's a very good performance but perhaps in the wrong movie.  Poitier said, "To say it was disastrous is a compliment," but whether he meant the film or his performance is unknown.

This was the second of three films in which Widmark and Poitier would co-star.  Widmark was grievously embarrassed by their first film together, NO WAY OUT, in which he played the vicious bigot Ray Biddle.  He apologized to Poitier, who played Dr. Luther Brooks, for being required to use a familiar racial epithet.  It's interesting that in their next two films, this one and THE BEDFORD INCIDENT, race doesn't play into the storyline or character relationships at all.  In that sense, Poitier's role in THE LONG SHIPS was something unusual, maybe even a breakthrough of sorts, particularly as his harem features women of several nations including caucasian Schiaffino.

I saw this in on a Cinerama screen back in the day and thought the film a terrific adventure.  As an adult I've had to adjust my perception of the film and consider it's intent.  Taken in the right frame of mind it's a fun film.