CIRCUS WORLD (1964) *1/2 John Wayne runs off to join the circus, so it has to be a cowboy circus. The only other good part is when he says "circus," which he does with far more conviction than anything else. This points to one of the main problems, which is that the film is full of dramatic lines in soapy situations, and none of the three leads delivers a single one in a manner unworthy of snickering at the hands of amateurs. The scenes between Claudia Cardinale and Rita Hayworth are probably the very worst, and Claudia worst of all, but no one ever expected dramatic acting from her anyway, did they? Which leaves a lot of blame for John and Rita. In Rita's appearance scene, long awaited and only semi anti-climactic, the make-up people did a really good job of making her look like Claudia's mother. The similarities of appearance are striking, but the make-up isn't as effective in the other scenes, failing to take lighting into account, I think. More people are no doubt offended by the shots of lions in rinky-dink two by four cages now than at the time, which suggests that social psychological evolution hasn't entirely brick walled despite the political manifestations. I think if they were committed to doing this script with this cast, their only hope was probably to fill film with opera songs of the most bombastic nature, and on-camera narration and moralistic hand wringing by Vincent Price.
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