Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 5: IN A LONELY PLACE (1950) and THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1952)

There's Sometimes a Buggy

This week in our Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view we watched one of her best-known films, In a Lonely Place (1950), directed by Nicholas Ray and co-starring Humphrey Bogart, alongside the unpromising Cecil B. DeMille circus drama The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). This may be the only time you find these two movies discussed together with roughly equal enthusiasm. Ray's portrait of a romance doomed by male violence may have psychological perception and stylish writing, but DeMille's Technicolor spectacle has a clown with a dark secret (played by Jimmy Stewart no less), Cornel Wilde shirtless in tight pants, a train wreck, the blood transfusion bonding trope, and of course, a love-crazed Nazi dangling an elephant's foot over Gloria Grahame's face. Unhinged Bogart meets unhinged DeMille, brought together by our Acteur giving restrained performances as wary observers.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: IN A LONELY PLACE (1950) [dir. Nicholas Ray]

0h 41m 24s: THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH [dir. Cecil B. DeMille]

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

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