The 100 Years of Rita Hayworth Blogathon – Circus World (1964)

This is the second of three posts dedicated to The 100 Years of Rita Hayworth Blogathon being held over at Love Letters to Old Hollywood.

Tnx Michaela for letting me take part!

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“Kid? I am a Woman… with Sicilian blood in her. You ever hear of a vendetta? ” – Toni

Number of Times Seen – 1 (15 Oct 2018)

Brief Synopsis – The manager of a circus that features a very successful Wild West show takes his crew to Europe in order to become a hit there.

My Take on it – When seeking a second film to watch for this blogathon, I came across the fact that Rita Hayworth worked with John Wayne in this film and that alone gave me reason to want to see what this is all about.

This film does a wonderful job showing us how circuses were run back around the turn of the 20th Century and how the logistic were set up in a certain way to allow the various talents to switch along the way while still keeping things thrilling for the audiences.

The main character has ulterior motives when he chooses to relocate the circus to Europe but they only give us bits of information along the way as to why.

I liked the way that they slowly reveal the information to us along with other characters as things move along in the story in a way that makes a lot of sense.

The cast is great here and John Wayne is perfectly cast in the lead.

In addition to Wayne, Rita Hayworth stands out as the circus performer that he is seeking out while in Europe in order to try and mend old wounds.

Hayworth is able to show how talented she is with this role and this is further proof as to why she is always known as such a great actress.

They also do a nice job showing some of very thrilling (and sometimes humorous) circus acts while still keeping the story itself engaging and intriguing.

Bottom Line – Interesting look at the way circus’ were run back at the turn of the 20th Century especially where they would constantly change their talent as they moved around.  The fact that the main character has additional motives to relocate to Europe is slowly revealed and we learn about the reason behind it all which makes quite a lot of sense. The cast is superb and Wayne stands out in the lead but the addition of Hayworth is great because she is able to show how talented an actress she could be. The way that some of the circus acts are show are quite thrilling to watch and they manage to give us an intriguing story that works throughout. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Whilst filming a scene where the main tent catches fire, John Wayne was almost killed when the set collapsed. As he was “fighting” the fire, Wayne was to be cued by the assistant director when to leave before the set was to collapse in flames. Either Wayne didn’t hear the cue, or the a.d. mistimed it (it was never determined which), but the flaming set began to collapse before Wayne got out. He escaped with just a few seconds to spare before the entire set would have fallen down on top of him.  (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy (7/10)

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