Word: circusing
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REMEMBER WHEN you were young and you went to the circus? And you saw every side show? Twice. And you played every game and watched the clowns do the same thing over and over again--but you laughed each time anyway. And you ate Cracker Jack. And cotton candy. And then you got sick. Well, those days are back again--and they're as close as Radcliffe Yard and the Grant-in-Aid production...
...story of the turn-of-the-century Circus Maximillian (pun)--"the second greatest show on earth" (joke) whose low net profits (pun) are forcing it into the red. Alas, says owner Maximillian Bucks (pun), the show needs $1 million or the big top will flop. To raise the money, Bucks calls upon Natalie Yellowbud, tightropist, singer and airhead extraordinaire, to star in an extravaganza in honor of President Woodrow Wilson. Meanwhile, Walter Wall (pun), decides he can't bear life at the stockmarket any longer. After embezzling $1 million, the stockbroker splits (pun) with his secretary and runs...
...hard to judge actors and actresses when they're saddled with this script. George Hunt as the red-blazered, pink-cheeked, Shecky Greene of a circus owner is familiar with Borowitz's brand of comedy. Too familiar, it seems, because he lets himself slip into boring routines and offers the same grin too many times. Hunt has some real stage presence but his voice is weak and his character confused; you never know whether he's Natalie's seducer or mentor...
...learn that the doctor (Johnny Haymer) has already enjoyed TV stardom in a 60 Minutes expose of "baby slave auctions." Yeager himself proves to be the most colorless veterinarian ever recorded on film. Local eyewitness-news teams descend on the Yeagers, transforming a TV stunt into a media circus. Finally, an exasperated studio chief (played as a disembodied speaker-phone voice by real-life Studio Executive Jennings Lang) clamps down on the project. He sternly reminds Brooks that reality, like any other Hollywood commodity, needs packaging (that is, fakery) in order to sell...
...have conveyed more eloquently the task of actually sitting down and putting words on paper: "Words are as recalcitrant as circus animals and the unskilled trainer can crack his whip at them in vain." And few have expressed more simply the pleasures of that word tamer. "Every writer and artist wonders what in the world people of other professions can find to live for. This is the great advantage they possess, which more than makes up for the little they usually earn." The words may jump and snarl, snap and bite when Brenan sits down at his own desk...