The Greatest Show on Earth is a 1952 American drama film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, shot in Technicolor and released by Paramount Pictures. Set in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the film stars Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde as trapeze artists competing for the center ring and Charlton Heston as the circus manager. James Stewart also stars as a mysterious clown who never removes his makeup, and Dorothy Lamour and Gloria Grahame also play supporting roles.
Jeffrey Leon Bridges is an American actor. He is known for his leading man roles in film and television. In a career spanning over seven decades, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for three BAFTA Awards and two Emmy Awards. In 2019, he was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
John Towner Williams is an American composer and conductor. In a career that has spanned seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed film scores in cinema history. He has a distinct sound that mixes romanticism, impressionism and atonal music with complex orchestration. He is best known for his collaborations with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and has received numerous accolades including 26 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. With 54 Academy Award nominations, he is the second-most nominated person, after Walt Disney, and is the oldest Oscar nominee in any category, at 92 years old.
The year of 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, Casablanca.
The year 1938 in film involved some significant events.
Dorothy Lamour was an American actress and singer. She is best remembered for having appeared in the Road to... movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.
42nd Street is a 1933 American pre-Code musical film directed by Lloyd Bacon, with songs by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics). The film's numbers were staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. It stars an ensemble cast of Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers.
Irwin Allen was an American film and television producer and director, known for his work in science fiction, then later as the "Master of Disaster" for his work in the disaster film genre. His most successful productions were The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974). He also created and produced the popular 1960s science-fiction television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants.
Road to Bali is a 1952 American comedy film directed by Hal Walker and starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. Released by Paramount Pictures on November 19, 1952, the film is the sixth of the seven Road to ... movies. It was the only entry in the series filmed in Technicolor and was the first to feature surprise cameo appearances from other well-known stars of the day.
The Hurricane is a 1937 film set in the South Seas, directed by John Ford and produced by Samuel Goldwyn Productions, about a Polynesian who is unjustly imprisoned. The climax features a "hurricane" generated through special effects. It stars Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall, with Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Thomas Mitchell, Raymond Massey, John Carradine, and Jerome Cowan. James Norman Hall, Jon Hall's uncle, co-wrote the novel of the same name on which The Hurricane is based.
Jon Hall was an American film actor known for playing a variety of adventurous roles, as in 1937's The Hurricane, and later when contracted to Universal Pictures, including Invisible Agent and The Invisible Man's Revenge and six films he made with Maria Montez. He was also known to 1950s fans as the creator and star of the Ramar of the Jungle television series which ran from 1952 to 1954. Hall directed and starred in two 1960s sci-fi films in his later years, The Beach Girls and the Monster (1965) and The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966).
Road to Singapore is a 1940 American semi-musical comedy film directed by Victor Schertzinger and starring Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope. Based on a story by Harry Hervey, the film is about two playboys trying to avoid romances on the fictional island of Kaigoon, where they meet a beautiful woman. Distributed by Paramount Pictures, the film marked the debut of the long-running and popular "Road to ..." series of pictures spotlighting the trio, seven in all. The supporting cast features Charles Coburn, Anthony Quinn, and Jerry Colonna.
Spawn of the North is a 1938 American adventure film about rival fishermen in Alaska starring George Raft, Henry Fonda and Dorothy Lamour, and featuring Akim Tamiroff and John Barrymore. The picture was directed by Henry Hathaway and was an unofficial follow up to Souls at Sea, also featuring Raft and directed by Hathaway. Spawn Of The North is based on the novel of the same name by Barrett Willoughby and shares plot similarities with The Virginian, transferred to Alaska.
Katherine Lester DeMille was a Canadian-born American actress who played 25 credited film roles from the mid-1930s to the late 1940s.
Her Jungle Love is a 1938 American South Seas adventure film directed by George Archainbaud and starring Dorothy Lamour and Ray Milland. Portions of the film were shot at Palm Springs, California.
Hell Ship Mutiny is a 1957 American South Seas adventure film directed by Lee Sholem and Elmo Williams starring Jon Hall who also produced and narrated the film. It is a compilation of a 1955 unsold television pilot Knight of the South Seas. Hall's father Felix Locher plays the role of a native chief.
Aloma of the South Seas is a lost 1926 American silent comedy drama film starring Gilda Gray as an erotic dancer, filmed in Puerto Rico and Bermuda, and based on a 1925 play of the same title by John B. Hymer and LeRoy Clemens.
The South Seas genre is a genre spanning various expressive forms including literature, film, visual art, and entertainment that depicts the islands of the southern Pacific Ocean through an escapist narrative lens. Stories may sometimes take place in tropic settings like the Caribbean or Bermuda. Many Hollywood films were produced on studio backlots or on Santa Catalina Island. The first feature non-documentary film made on location was Lost and Found on a South Sea Island, shot in Tahiti.
Typhoon is a 1940 American Technicolor south seas adventure film directed by Louis King and starring Dorothy Lamour and Robert Preston. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects.
Road to Utopia is a 1946 American semi-musical comedy film directed by Hal Walker and starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. Filmed in 1943 but not released until 1946, Road to Utopia is the fourth film of the "Road to ..." series. Written by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, the film is about two vaudeville performers at the turn of the twentieth century who go to Alaska to make their fortune. Along the way they find a map to a secret gold mine. In 1947, Road to Utopia received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
